Angelic Images: Flower Girls and Ring Bearers

Image by Absolutely Loved: Stefanie and Anna Riedel

A funny thing happened as we were viewing images in preparation for our next Featured Wedding in March. I'm looking through literally hundreds of images from the photographer and suddenly, I'm completely mesmorized, and no, it wasn't from the cake. It was the sweetest, most angelic face in the world that captured my attention and no, it wasn't the bride. It was the same thing that pulls me away from the world of cakes each and every time we receive a new Featured Wedding -- it's the children! Those adorable, flower girls and ring bearers, it completely turns me to mush every time. As sort of a guilty pleasure, I've been saving some of the cutest flower girl and ring bearers culled from various CDs from photographers we've received over the years, and can't bear the idea of not sharing something so precious with our dear readers. Enjoy these images of our cutest, most to-die-for, sweet, sweet angelic faces, and the talented photographers who captured them.

Please give these photographers due respect and contact them directly if you wish to use any of these images. Thank you!

If you've fallen in love, as we have, with the flower girl and ring bearer photos, feel free to compliment our photographers and let us know if you wish to see more in the future. That can be arranged ... and yes, more cakes to come next week!

Enjoy!


Image by VISIONARI


Image by Dave Miyamoto & Company



Image by Chrissy Lambert Photography


Image by Rachel Robertson Photography




Image by VISIONARI


Image by Dave Miyamoto & Company


Image by Chrissy Lambert Photography




Image by VISIONARI



Image by Absolutely Loved: Stefanie and Anna Riedel



Image by VISIONARI



Image by Rachel Robertson Photography



Image by Absolutely Loved: Stefanie & Anna Riedel




Image by VISIONARI


Image by VISIONARI


Image by Absolutely Loved: Stefanie and Anna Riedel



Image by VISIONARI


(attention to KENDRA, please, please email me the photo of your adorably cute ring bearer. He needs to be included here and I can't find the photo anywhere!)

Marrying Italian, Estonian and English

All images courtesy of Dave Miyamoto & Company: Photographers Russ Ramos and John Hook

Mary Lou and Brian were one of those couples that we worked with from afar. They reside on the East Coast and weren't coming to Hawaii prior to their wedding, which took place at the Bayer Estate last weekend. Since we had to rush off to another wedding immediately after theirs, we didn't have a chance to meet them in person, which is always a little sad because after getting to know our brides over the months we work with them, I look forward to meeting them. Thank goodness for our photographers who come to our rescue bringing images of the couple, so even if we can't meet them, at least we can put a face with a name (and a cake).

We are grateful to Russ Ramos and John Hook of Dave Miyamoto & Company who provided us these lovely images of Mary Lou and Brian's wedding.

For their wedding cake, the couple wanted to tie in their Italian (bride) and Estonian (groom) heritages, with their spoken English language and thought it would be fun to have words of what they love in the 3 languages written on the cake. Some of these meaningful items included: family, parents, friends, travel, mountains, laughter, beaches, photography, cooking, and many more. At the top of the cake we put a cluster of handcrafted orchids to tie in with the bride's bouquet. Our Lemon Pucker and Kona Toffee Crunch flavors were chosen for this intimate wedding. Congratulations, Mary Lou and Brian!






















Visit cakelava.com in the coming days for many new wedding and celebration cakes!

Hello, Gorgeous!

Images courtesy of Amodo Photo: Photography by Frank Amodo

If I met our bride Leslie's wedding cake in person, I'd say "Hello, Gorgeous!" Designed in champagne and ivory, the handcrafted gardenias and calla lillies were the perfect compliment to the delicate piping inspired by Leslie's wedding gown. I love the contemporary square and circle shaped tiers and the flowers peeking out just so. It looked so beautiful in the room with the pretty linens and floral designs by Peony Floral. Sandra from Finishing Touch, did a wonderful job setting the scene. Congratulatons to our newlyweds Leslie and Greg, and a Big Thanks to photographer Frank Amodo for sharing the lovely images!

New wedding cakes including Leslie and Greg's will be posted soon on cakelava.com.

YWD (Your Wedding Day) Magazine - So Excited!

One of our favorite things about appearing in national magazines is receiving the advance copy before it hits the stores. It's like being let in on a secret, and absolutely nothing feels better than opening the issue for the first time and finding your "section." Your Wedding Day Magazine, also known as YWD is one of the top wedding fashion magazines in the country. Each issue is so amazingly gorgeous, from the editorial content to the bridal fashions, the advertisements, even the high quality of the paper feels good in your hands. There are so many wedding magazines we can't keep up with all of them, but the gems in the mix really do stand out, and this is definitely one of them.

Last October Rick made a very special cake for a photo shoot with YWD Magazine. We're not revealing the cake until the magazine is officially out, which should be anyday now, but our feature is under their Event Design section and is called "New Eclectic Hawaii". We got to work with some of our favorite vendors on the shoot including Finishing Touch, Yvonne Design, Les Saisons, blufotographica, and Emi Ink. We were pleased with the outcome of the shoot and enjoyed collaborating with all the vendors involved. Doing a shoot for a magazine is satisfaction enough, but they kept returning to us for other sections of the magazine, and that truly sent us over the top! I forget exactly how we celebrated being one of their featured companies for their "In The Spotlight" section (shown above) but we were ecstatic! It was an honor to be in the company of some of the best in the industry, and it's always fun to see the cakes in print. We also have a Real Wedding in the magazine, and are included in their "Destination Hot Spots" section. It's all very exciting and will seem even more real once the issue comes out. If you are a bride, definitely look for this magazine -- it's a beauty!

til next time, Aloha!

Celebrating Their New MINI-Me

Rick and I live for cakes like this MINI Cooper he recently made for a baby shower. First of all, it's orange, and orange is one of Rick's favorite colors. It's a MINI Cooper, a car that at one point of our lives we looked into buying, in part because we wanted something hip, youthful, and completely unpractical. Oh boy, can we ever relate to the sentiment of this MINI Cooper/baby themed cake. It was made for a baby shower honoring an ultra-hip couple who works at an architecture firm, about to become parents and pretty adamant about keeping their MINI, which represents more than just a car to them. It's a major lifestyle change. Our client who ordered the cake for the couple explained how they were afraid of having to purchase a sensible car and thought about the possibility of upgrading to a 4-door MINI Cooper, which we thought was pretty hilarious, but also something we can relate to. Rick and I have no children at this time and the thought of mini-vans and station wagons scare us, probably in the same way a family car scares this couple. Our client wanted to tie in their newest addition in a humorous way and then it was just a matter of Rick, her and I brainstorming and coming up with some hilarious details. For starters, the giant baby head on the top of their bright orange MINI Cooper. The "Baby on Board" sticker on the back of the vehicle, and of course, the vanity "KEIKICAR" license plate. "Keiki" means baby or child in Hawaiian. Just to really drive the point home, the writing on the cake was "Congratulations on your new Mini-Me!"

Check out our selection of sculpted car cakes on cakelava.com.

Yakudoshi Birthday Cake

If you live in Hawaii, or anywhere with a large Japanese population, you are probably familiar with the term "yakudoshi." Since we started making cakes here, we have been asked on a number of occasions to design a cake for a yakudoshi birthday. If you are asking "What does yakudoshi mean?", I found a great explanation online:

Yakudoshi are the years of calamity. This is a Japanese belief that people at the ages of yakudoshi are likely to experience misfortunes or illness. It is generally believed that men's yakudoshi are the ages 25, 42 and 61, and for women 19, 33 and 37, though there are local and historical variations. One's yakudoshi is measured by adding one to the actual age.

The ages of 42 for men and 33 for women are considered to be particularly bad years, honyaku (great calamity). This is probably because the numbers 42 and 33 are phonetically unlucky numbers. 42 can be pronounced "shi-ni" which is homophonous with the word " to death," and and 33, when pronounced as "sanzan" means "hard," "terrible," or "disastrous". When reaching yakudoshi, many people go to Shinto shrines for exorcism (yakubarai). Although this is just a superstition, it may not be improbable because people seem to go through hard times with their health or jobs around these ages.

Knowing this, it makes perfect sense that a cake to celebrate one's Yakudoshi would include symbols of luck and fortune to offset the various possible misfortunes brought about by a yakudoshi. This was the case on Valentine's Day, a day usually honoring lovers, was also our client's yakudoshi, and we did our best to give as much good fortune as one cake can contain. Speaking of luck, it's lucky that Rick has such a steady hand because the amount of detail on this cake was amazing! There were dragons, cranes turtles and bamboo on the cake, all symbols of luck and fortune and on the middle the Kanji character for "Dream". It was a beautiful representation and it makes me feel calm and happy just looking at it.

Aloha, 'til next time!

Angel and Tara's Valentine's Day Wedding

Our last delivery on Valentine's Day took us all the way out to the North Shore, to a home out on Kawela Bay for Angel and Tara's wedding. We were on the road for hours back and forth to events all over the island and we were rewarded after a long day with a nice drive along the North Shore, where life moves much slower and the ocean views are incredible!

For Tara and Angel's wedding cake, Rick took inspiration from their favorite flower, the Bird of Paradise and designed a cake that would highlight the flower and its lush greenery. The cake reminded me of a Hawaiian tapestry or painting -- I really loved the look of it. The dimensional and shaded aspects were lovely. We received many compliments on the cake from the couple's guests and other vendors present, and we hope Angel and Tara loved their cake as well. A cake as unique as this one deserved unusual flavors and we weren't suprised by their choice of our Banana Blueberry Mascarpone as one of their flavors. All our best to Tara and Angel!

See Angel and Tara's cakes, along with many other new cakes on cakelava.com in the near future.

Aloha!

Next Featured Wedding Sneak Peek - Christina and Steve

All images courtesy of Absolutely Loved: Stefanie & Anna Riedel

Christina and Steve's wedding at the Loulu Palm Estate on the North Shore was one of our first weddings of 2009 and it sure was a pretty one. It was an obvious choice as a Featured Wedding on cakelava.com because it was stylish and beautiful, incorporated the bride's Greek heritage, and brought together many top-notch vendors we love working with. Christina and Steve chose a white color palette, and brought in accent colors such as celadon green and brown, which added a modern, tropical touch to their wedding. The always fabulous Sandra Williams of Finishing Touch coordinated and designed their event, along with florist Yvonne of Yvonne Design, Troy Michael of DJ Entertainment, catering by Chef Elmer Guzman at Catering Connection, and cakelava for the wedding cake. Photographer Stefanie Riedel of Absolutely Loved was there to capture every moment shared by the couple and their guests. Stefanie seemed like a perfect match for Christina and Steve, with her artful, romantic style, the images were absolutely gorgeous!

The Loulu Palm Estate provided the breathtaking ocean-front views, perfect for this romantic and affectionate couple. Christina and Steve's wedding reception is being showcased on the Loulu Palm Estate website as well, but doesn't include their colorful traditional Greek ceremony held at the St. Constantine and Helen's Greek Orthodox Church, which is definitely worth a look!

For Christina and Steve's cake, we went mostly white with dark brown and celadon green accents and incorporated a star pattern found on their paperie. Rick did an exquisite job on their cake and it was a strong focal point at the wedding. It was clear our couple LOVES chocolate, and chose our Hot Fudge Sundae and Kona Toffee Crunch (with chocolate cake of course) for their flavor.

Now for the girly stuff. Christina's wedding gown was made by designer Claire Pettibone , and her Dolce and Gabbana shoes definitely made a statement! Congratulations to Christina and Steve! See more of Christina and Steve's wedding on cakelava.com, coming soon!