First, to think of a theme for the cupcakes. The bride is a sweet and lovely girl, very gentle and feminine. I received her wedding invitation card, which was baby pink with a little rose ribbon on the top of the card...immediately everything clicked and fell into place.
The cupcakes would be nothing short of feminine, soft, floral and sweet...
She ordered 50 cupcakes for approximately 70 guests expected to attend the church reception.
I told her I'd try to make 70 if I could, so each one could have at least one.
On top of making 70 cupcakes for a wedding for the first time, I was also the maid of honour... so plenty of work for me before the wedding and during the wedding! I secretly wondered if I'd taken on too much. But then again, its not every day my dear girlfriend gets married, so it was going to be worth it.
Planning went on well, I made test designs for the bride to choose and had a few discussions with her on the general feel and design that she liked. She definitely liked rosettes, and also the traditional cupcake swirl.
So I decided on chocolate cupcake and vanilla cupcakes, to give guests a choice of 2 flavours. The buttercream is also super unique, and not the usual butter + icing sugar variety. I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream flavoured with melted white chocolate, so its not overly sweet and yet stiff enough to pipe designs to withstand our humid and hot weather. :)
To top of the designs the bride requested for silver dragees. So for the second design I thought of making pink fondant flowers of different sizes.
The cupcake stand was tricky. It had to fit the theme and also be special and "non-commercial". After doing some research on the internet I decided to make my own stand. After much running around over a few weekends, I think I got everything I need. I made a 4 tier cupcake stand using cake boards and covered it with shimmery pink paper. Styrofoam cake dummies were the dividers and "stand", and they were wrapped with silver ribbon. Finally I bought some beautiful and dramatic silver lace to line around the border of the cake stand.
The lace was the most unexpected find and finding it deserves a little story on its own. One day I was running errands I found an old and quite unassuming fabric shop in Old Serdang. It was a small shop with a musty smell smell mixed with the smell of canine. Rolls of ribbon, lace and tassles are stuffed into old glass sliding cabinets. The lady of the shop was watching television, which was propped on a table right in the middle of the shop. A shop reminiscent of simpler days of the past, of lazy afternoons and of housewives knitting as a hobby. A dog lay asleep right in front of the display cabinet, I had to wriggle my way between the shelves from the other side.
The shop has the most beautiful selection of gold and silver lace. There was so much possibility for crafts and art! I visited the shop twice before I purchased the lace, all 4 metres of it. It was the last place in my mind that I would find such a beautiful piece of lace and now I know the secret place to go. ;)
The final result on the day of the wedding:
One day I'll write a post about making the cupcake stand.The bride was beautiful on that day. The church wedding was at the beautiful Holy Rosary Church in Brickfields and it went without a hitch. I kept my eye on the veil at all times to make sure it was in place. The bride commented that the cupcakes were beautiful! How sweet.
Job number 1 was a total success. I can't wait for more!
It wasn't long before I got commissioned for job number 2... A challenge of higher proportions!
Stay tuned for more!
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