Recently, we’ve been showing you amazing photos from shoot PTW hosted at Harbour’s Place in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out engagement and bridal portraits by Mark Davidson and the fabulous tablescape designed by Amy Piper of Signature Events. Ok, I LOVE this cake and it was a perfect fit to the overall design. Erin Gardner of Wild Orchid Baking (located in North Hampton, NH) shared with us her inspiration for the design of this cake and how couples with different budgets could make certain adjustments to this cake in order to fit it into their own wedding budget:
This is a 3-tier square cake covered in a layer of light blue fondant, designed with repeating rows of white & green fondant circles. On the green circles are tiny white sugar shells and starfish.
How did you come up with the design? I knew the other elements of the shoot were going to have similar details – squares, modern nautical, starfish, blues and greens. So I wanted to do something that would fit into the overall feel of the wedding, but still be a piece that can stand on it’s own. I’m always very inspired by textiles and this repeating dot pattern is something you’ll find on nautical, beachy inspired handbags (I think Kate Spade did a few bags like this a few years ago). I’m asked to do nautical cakes all the time, so I love when I’m able to do something a little different.
If a couple had a little bit more to spend on s cake, what would you do differently? Right now the cake is very clean and graphic. With a bigger budget, we could add a nice full topper of sugar flowers to match the bride’s bouquet. That would really soften the look of the cake and add a little femininity. Or taking a step even further, we could do layers of flowers between each tier adding lots of height and drama.
If a couple wanted to cut back a little bit on their budget for a cake, how can they achieve a similar design? This cake could easily be done round, which would decrease the overall cost of the cake. Square cakes are typically a little more expensive because they’re more time consuming for the designer. You could also just do a stripe of dots on the top and bottom tiers, with the center tier being the only one filled with circles. That would give you a very similar look, but cut back a lot on time and materials.
If this cake design was to serve let’s say 150 guests, approximately, what $ range would this design fit into? For 150 people, this would be around $900-$1,000.
images above by Mark Davidson
