Wedding Cake Inspired by Anne Namba

www.cakelava.com

Today's blog is dedicated to my husband Rick, who spent approximately 25 hours last week making this amazing wedding cake for a couple who were married on Saturday.  Between this gorgeous huge wedding cake and the accompanying sculpted groom's cake, which we will show next time, our schedule was completely filled and we've been turning away orders for the January 8th weekend since last Spring.

Rick designed the cake in June and received approval shortly after.  The approval to move forward was not from Karen, the bride, but from her parents, who had placed the entire design completely in Rick's hands, as requested by the bride.  It is unusual to say the least, for a bride to release control over such an integral piece in the wedding. Karen desired to be surprised and felt confident Rick would design her a cake that would win approval by her parents, and as well as herself.  When the cake was designed, we were all so excited to see it in person!  Luckily for us, Karen had a fabulous wedding coordinator, Nichole Shin of Nichole Weddings & Events who assisted with the logistics of the two surprise cakes!  The bride wouldn't see their wedding cake until the day of the wedding and the groom's cake was a surprise gift from her parents to the couple.  This was a very unusual situation for us.

Rick started making the flowers at the beginning of the wedding week.  We had sugar petals laid out on trays all over our kitchen along with photos of our bride's exquisite Anne Namba designer gown which was used in the design of the cake.  Anne Namba is a designer known for her "Kimono Couture" fashions.  She uses beautiful Japanese silks with prints on them for her couture collection.  Karen's silk bridal gown had a print similar to what is on the cake with gorgeous large flowers on part of the dress.  We were instructed not to make the cake 4 tiers, because in Japanese culture the number 4 equals death, so Rick designed the cake with 5-tiers, with a few concave shapes and rounds, to mimic the feminity of the dress and play up the shape of the cake.  Flowers were handpainted and a delicate design was piped onto the base of the cake to mimic the look of the silk.  The cake was very tall, extremely heavy and 4 different flavors on the inside.  The wedding and reception were held at Kualoa Ranch's Moli'i Gardens, which feels like a lush, tropical rainforest, and is down the street from where LOST was filmed so you can just imagine how beautiful the location is.  Congratulations to our couple and a huge thank you to her parents John and Mary and the couple's coordinator, Nichole.

We have decided, this is our new "favorite" cake!  Join us next time as we reveal the sculpted groom's cake, a most unusual design.