Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Hixson

Well I did it; I made my first wedding cake. A co-worker of mine asked me to make a wedding cake for her father's wedding. After refusing a few times she finally convinced me to take on the challenge. They gave me an idea of the color scheme and let me do whatever I wanted. They said if I didn't make the cake they were going to go buy something ugly at Albertsons so they didn't have high expectations. I was beyond nervous the entire process and still haven't decided if I would ever be brave enough to make another wedding cake. So basically to give you an idea of what you are looking at: We have a 3 tier champagne cake (12 inch, 9 inch, 6 inch) with a pale orange champagne butter cream. There are 3 bottles of champagne and 3 pounds of butter in this cake. Since I was working with a 12 inch round there was NO WAY I had the ability to cover something that large without a sheeter (a piece of equipment that rolls out fondant into giant sheets) so butter cream was my old option.

I did a lot of research to figure out how to make butter cream look smooth, every time i've tried before it always looks choppy and you can see all the lines from the spatula. I learned the answer is: Viva paper towels. No other brand will work. Once you frost the cake you let it sit for about 10 minutes for it set up a little then you set the paper towel lightly over the frosting and lightly smooth over the top with a scraper. Don't believe me? Watch this:

Simple orange ribbon was used to separate the layers then mini edible pearls were set all around the cake. Finally, I arranged fresh flowers finish things off. Here's a 360 degree view of the cake.

The wedding is in a hour, hopefully they like their cake!