Wedding Cakes

The wedding cakes (Brett's groom cake specifically) was one of my favorite details to pick out.  After doing plenty of research, I discovered, like many of the wedding vendors in the DFW area, wedding cakes are not cheap.  I was shocked to find many of the cakes started at $4 a slice for the basic (and some even starting at $6 a slice!) - making a 200 person cake, a total of $800.  Seemed a little pricey, especially since that didn't even include the grooms cake which I knew I wanted to do something special for Brett.  I wanted him to have a cake of something he loved, a fun little detail to add to our wedding.  So what does Brett love?  Blue Bell Ice Cream!  He could eat Homemade Vanilla (or any flavor for that matter) for every day for the rest of his life and be content.  So, how could I get both of our cakes, serve our guests and still stay within budget?  Look in the suburbs for cheaper options.  Mom goes to a bakery close to her house in Hurst every once in awhile for a cupcake.  As most of you know, I love cupcakes - and I definitely approved of these little treats.  Their prices for wedding cakes were actually reasonable too.  I really couldn't believe it.  So that's pretty much how we decided on our wedding cakes from Texas Star Bakery. The baker made us a little box of mini cakes to try the different flavors.  I knew I wanted mine to be a vanilla - buttercream.  For Brett's we had to choose the flavor - and I couldn't tell him about the frosting, because the whole cake was a surprise to him!  It was so hard to keep my mouth shut - I really really wanted to tell him!  Somehow, I didn't - and am so glad that I was able to keep the secret.

His cake was also the buttercream frosting - which was great because I wasn't too fond of the fondant cakes.  Who knew the baker could do something like this with buttercream?  I was so glad the cake looked realistic - that was one of my big concerns, that it would not look the way it was supposed to.

We decided on the marble cake, and am glad we did!  They also had a fabulous kahlua cake that was the second runner up.

"This cake is pretty good!"

My wedding cake inspiration:

 

This is what my baker came up with:

My eyes say it all in this picture.

Another detail to add to our wedding - my cake topper.  After doing some research, I wanted to add another little rustic touch.  A cute banner did just the trick.  I started out by cutting a triangle out of cardstock to be my model for the banner.  A little over 1 & 1/2 inches tall and about 1 inch -ish wide.

I then cut out a triangle (well, a double triangle really, a fold at the top of the triangle) out of muslin cloth.  Then took twine I found at Michaels, glued a triangle shape to attach the cloth to the twine.  If I had a sewing machine, I could have attached with thread, but sans sewing machine forced me to look at other options.  I wanted the triangle to be completely attached, not separate.

I attached four more triangles for the "JUST" part of the banner.  Then tied twine to 2 skewers.

For the letters, I used black fabric paint and traced my letters (my handwriting is atrocious!)

Finished product.  Very happy with the way it turned out.  In the future, I would love to invest in a sewing machine and save some time without all of the gluing.  Then, I could sale these on Etsy and open up a little wedding shop.

LOVE.