Carly and Matthew - A Celebration in Pink and Green

All images courtesy of Dave Miyamoto Photography

When Dave Miyamoto sent us these images of Carly and Matthew's wedding we were instantly smitten. His lovely images not only show Dave's talent for capturing people's smiles and spirit, they show a couple madly in love with each other, and that is pretty darn sexy. Since we met Carly and Matthew a year ago when they ordered their wedding cake from us, we have become "fans" of theirs. They have been a total delight to work with, are very enthused about anything we make for them (including birthday cupcakes, birthday cake, and a wedding cake), and we found out are also Modest Mouse fans, an added bonus.

For their wedding, Carly and Matthew hired some incredible vendors, including Mona Hirata, of Weddings By Grace & Mona, Debbie Hemingway of Designs by Hemingway for the beautiful pink and ivory florals and Dave Miyamoto to document their special day. Vows were exchanged at the Hale Koa Hotel, a military hotel in Waikiki, where the reception also took place. I love the combination of a more formal, military attired ceremony with the playfulness of the pink and green themed reception. Bright pink and green linens were placed on the tables, and complemented the flowers, favors, and even some of the cuisine, including their wedding cake.

Carly and Matthew gave us plenty of artistic leeway when designing their cake. Their requests were funky, pink and green and white, and swirls, so Rick worked his magic and the result is below. For their cake flavors, they chose Guava Lava, a completely pink cake, which couldn't be more fitting for this wedding, and our Hot Fudge Sundae, a nice combination.

Rick was filmed by KITV news on August 7, 2008, while he was working on Carly and Matthew's cake. To see the making of their cake in action, click here.

We wish Carly and Matthew many years of happiness as husband and wife, and Carly, we'll see you this weekend for your birthday cake!








see Carly and Matthew's cake on cakelava.com soon.

"The Red Cake" Revisited

Our "Red Cake" shown above has been well-circulated. It's been on our website since 2006, when Rick designed the cake for our bride Juliet, and has appeared in a number of magazines. While the execution of the cake and design is ours, we had a great source of inspiration from Juliet, a graphic artist, who sent us the invitations she had made which looked a lot like the bottom tier of the cake. All components on the cake are handcrafted. This past July we made Juliet's cake for Theresa, but instead of red, we did the cake in sky blue fondant. You'd think that recreating a cake we designed would be easier than making a new design, but that isn't the case. It can be more challenging. I recall Rick painstakingly observing every last detail of where he placed a flower or wire on Juliet's cake just to be sure that it would look the same on Theresa's cake. Since it was made 2 years ago, all the details weren't completely fresh in his mind.

Apart from how the cakes look, there are other similarities. Both have white draping as a backdrop. Note the photographer on both cakes, Chrissy Lambert Photography. With the amount of interest we've had from people asking about "The Red Cake" over the past couple years, my guess is we may be making it again, perhaps in another color, in the future.

Black Fondant, Pink Daisies and Hidden Mickey's

One the newest cakes up on cakelava.com is from Kathy and Ryan's wedding on June 28th. Their wedding cake, shown above was designed for the couple nearly a year earlier and we've all been looking forward to it since. It takes an open-minded couple to order a bold BLACK fondant cake, and it took a little convincing by the groom to the bride to agree to black fondant but once she did, there were smiles all around. For many reasons Kathy and Ryan's cake was quite unusual, the obvious reason being that the cake is black, not a traditional wedding color. Keeping with non-tradition, which we always welcome, Rick designed their cake so their tiers would be varied in height but also that some of the tiers wouldn't sit perfectly center. Handcrafted pink daisies bands of black polka dots on the bottom of each tier added to the design. Kathy and Ryan love Mickey Mouse and wanted to integrate his silhouette in a subtle way, as they had on their invitations. Rick placed "hidden" Mickey Mouse heads amongst the polka dots. At the top of their 5-tier black wedding cake sat a silver monogram "KR".

If the bold black fondant cake with hidden Mickey's wasn't enough of a surprise for their 400 guests, they upped the ante by making the inside colorful as well. They chose our Rainbowlicious (see Taryn and Gavin's wedding post for a photo of this flavor) for their cake cutting to bring on the WOW factor, and Banana Nutella flavor for the rest of the cake. Just to be sure everything matched beautifully, the cake was placed on a pink custom linen by Les Saisons. Incidentally, this wedding was where we got to play in the Blue Cheese photo booth, a perfect "something Blue" in an otherwise black and pink themed room.

Kathy and Ryan, thank you for the opportunity to make your cake. All the best on your new life together!

See many new wedding cakes, including Kathy and Ryan's on cakelava.com.