Next Featured Wedding Sneak Peek - Lesley and Jason

All images courtesy of VISIONARI

Our next Featured Wedding on cakelava.com pretty much selected itself. We got a CD in the mail from the talented photographic team at Visionari and the images were so pretty and the black and white wedding so striking we couldn't ignore it. Plus, they had the most precious flower girl. This wedding must be featured! Lesley and Jason were married on January 14, 2009, at the historic Moana Surfrider Resort on Waikiki Beach. The ceremony took place on the Terrace overlooking the ocean and the reception was held indoors in the Rooftop Garden, a lovely intimate space filled with light and views of Waikiki. Lesley and Jason selected a color palette of black and white and their florals in soft pinks and whites. They hired coordinator Lissa Wilson of The Wedding Planners, who always designs a beautiful event, and left the rest up to their vendors -- Always Flowers for floral design, cakelava for their wedding cake, Leslie Gallagher for hair and makeup, Video 21 Productions for videography.

Lesley and Jason, who reside in Canada, wanted an unusual wedding cake with a fly-fishing theme, since the groom loves to fly fish. We've done many cakes with the ocean fishing theme, but not too many with the river fishing theme. Apart from a fishing themed topper Lesley provided us to add onto the cake, and their black and white color scheme, Rick was given free reign on the design of the cake. They wanted it to be fun and memorable, and that's exactly what we gave them.

We'll be posting Lesley and Jason's Featured Wedding on cakelava.com in the next couple days.
Here's a little sneak peek. Enjoy!
















We couldn't resist these last couple images of this angelic flower girl indulging in Lesley and Jason's cake. Sweet!




Aloha, til next time!

A Cake with Fish, Not a Fish Cake

All photos courtesy of Visionari

If you've been following our blog, you'll recognize the names Reiko and Jason as one of our December Featured Wedding couple nominees. Although they didn't win your votes, they are a winning couple in our book! What we loved about Reiko and Jason's elegant wedding at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa, expertly coordinated by Sandra Williams of Finishing Touch, was the attention to all the little details, including their subtle "fish" motif. During our meeting with Reiko, she mentioned wanting to add fish on her cake without making it a "Fish cake", in other words, this wasn't a fish themed cake, but rather, a cake that happened to have some fish on it. Her fiance Jason has a nickname of "Fish" since he has the word in his last name, so they would have pretty fish touches here and there -- but not a "fish" themed wedding. We decided to go all white for their cake to keep the fish subtle and instead of making a single fish on the tiers, Rick went for a whole school of fish in a pattern reminiscent of ocean waves. To give the cake a little punch, Reiko wanted a funky shape, something unexpected for her guests. The couple went for color for the inside of their cake, with our pink colored Guava Lava cake and our Hot Fudge Sundae flavor. Reiko and Jason were gracious and enthused about their cake during the design process and just as sweet afterwards when they sent us this Thank You letter:

Oh my gosh.....

The cake you had made for us was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!

Not only Jason and I, but all of our guest were asking where on earth we had the cake made, and everyone just LOVED IT!! The cake was EXACTLY like the way we wanted; simple, stylish with white on white, and with the fish.... It was a difficult design that we asked for, but yet you made it just PERFECT. Thank you so so much!!! Wishing you all the best, and will be checking your websites for some more cool cake designs to come!!

-- Jason and Reiko -- September 2008

We wish Reiko and Jason many years of happiness!

Visit cakelava.com to see Reiko and Jason's wedding cake and many others.

Sailing Into a Beautiful New Life Together

For most of this week, we've been profiling cakes that were made for events last weekend. Why not continue the trend today and show you a couple more. These two lovelies, a wedding cake and groom's cake were made for our wedding couple Bonnie and Chris, who were married at a home on the North Shore. These were the cakes we had to deliver immediately after the elegant French circus inspired cake profiled on wednesday's blog. Deliveries out to the North Shore are always a little more stressful, because the delivery time is up to an hour and a half and if there is heavy traffic due to surfing competitions, popular in the winter months, then it can take even longer. However, Saturday's delivery was smooth sailing, so to speak.

For their wedding cake, Rick designed a beautiful green fondant wedding cake with some taller tiers for the handcrafted phalaenopsis orchid branch to crawl up. We were pleased to see phalaenopsis orchids in vases under their tent and on the cake table. It seems obvious, I know, but sometimes we show up and months earlier when the wedding cake had been designed with a certain flowers in place and the sketch approved, the bride decides sometime before the wedding to completely change the flowers and not tell us. That's always fun. With Bonnie and Chris' wedding, everything was as discussed, and for Chris' surprise groom's cake, Rick made a sculpted sailboat exactly as requested -- wooden deck, sunrise shell on the sail, "Just Married" written on back of the boat, and fishing poles with a fish, in this case, a big marlin. I thought it was fantastic! Bonnie chose our Banana Nutella flavor for the sailboat and one of our signature flavors, Local Kine Special, a coconut cake with taro cream filling for their wedding cake.

This wedding had all the right components. A beachfront house on the North Shore, a gourmet BBQ dinner cooked by Chef Jason Paul, two gorgeous cakes, a bar, and 100 or so of their closest friends and family to celebrate with them. Looked like a fun time!


Well, I must have been on the same wave length as Bonnie because this morning, when I had already planned on writing about their wedding cakes, she sent us a email thank you:

Dear Rick and Sasha,

The cakes were absolutely AMAZING!!! The wedding cake was gorgeous and the sailboat was beyond perfect...the fishing poles and the fish were perfect and the sunrise shell was such a great touch! They were both better than I could have imagined...and tasted so good!! We got a ton of compliments.

Thanks again!!
My best wishes to the both of you,

Bonnie P

Bonnie and Chris,

You two were wonderful to work with! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to create for your special day. We wish both of you the best!

Sasha & Rick

Check out Bonnie and Chris' cakes and many more new additions on cakelava.com!