A Glimpse After the Cake

All images courtesy of Amodo Photo: Photography by Frank Amodo

It’s always a treat when a photographer sends us images of a wedding and we get to see the couple for the first time. Rachel and Henry, a destination wedding couple and I had only ever communicated long distance so to see them captured exquisitely by Frank Amodo was the next best thing to meeting them in person. Rachel and Henry were married at the Westin Moana Surfrider on May 24th in their intimate Rooftop Garden venue. I recall from talking to the couple that the bride had recently moved to the states from Korea and it appears in the photos she chose to honor their heritage in the wedding which is a beautiful and meaningful component to have.

Their cake was anything but traditional. Done in white fondant with handcrafted plumerias, Rick piped an elegant swirl design and gave the cake a fun and unexpected shape. Their flavors were Kona Toffee Crunch and Strawberries Chantilly.

Frank Amodo also wrote about Rachel and Henry's wedding on his blog. To see it from the photographer’s perspective check out his blog. Thank you, Henry and Rachel for making us part of your special day!

Pink Roses, Champagne and Diamonds

All photos courtesy of Dave Miyamoto Photography

We’ve had much interest in this pearlescent champagne and pink fondant wedding cake, which was designed for our bride Sylvia. Sylvia, like many other brides, fell in love with a tilted green and brown cake on our website that had a pattern of diamonds and handcrafted flowers, and wanted a cake done very similarly in her wedding colors of pinks and champagnes. Rick designed the cake with 3 taller tiers, slightly tilting into one another, and made the patterns soft and romantic, using varying tones of pink and champagne. Each tier was lined with champagne and pink handcrafted roses and fondant pearls were placed at the top and base of the cake. For the top tier, in keeping with the romantic feel of the wedding, he made a custom hearts cake topper reminiscent of a waterfall.

The reception room at the Westin Moana Surfrider was filled with roses. Sylvia clearly loved her roses and hired Designs by Hemingway as her floral designer. Mona Hirata of Weddings by Grace and Mona and the marvellous Dave Miyamoto beautifully photographed the couple’s perfect day.

As seen on iReport

My mother-in-law Joan, who regularly forwards us interesting things she finds on the internet, sent this story to us recently. She found it on iReport and I thought it was worthy of a post. Thank you, Joan! We got a good laugh out of it, and thankfully, we don't have a similar story of our own. Enjoy!

Wedding Cake

Posted by: AllTech1 // 5 days ago // viewed 11,990 times
Chicago Suburbs, Illinois // embed media
Last updated: 5 days ago

I was a wedding photographer for 15 years. I started in high school with my dad and ended up making it my first adult career.

I've photographed over 700 weddings and sometimes I thought I had seen it all, but I would be surprised again and again every weekend.

For a while I even wrote about the experiences in a magazine, and I never ran out of fun things that happened. Like the bride being so nervous she used the mens room before the the wedding by accident in front of the guests, or the fist fight between the bride and groom, and the bride was the one arrested.

One of my favorites had to do with a hot July wedding on a Saturday in the Chicago suburbs. They had a tent setup for shade under which the wedding cake sat. They put the cake out a little too earlry and within an hour it leaned decidedly to the left like the leaning tower of Pisa.

Sure enough that cake took a nose dive onto the DJ booth and all his equipment about a half hour before it was time to cut the cake. A groomsman went out to a local grocery store to buy a replacement cake, albeit of a lesser quality.

He placed the cake on the backseat floor of his car ever so carefully right next to his bowling ball. Well at some point the laws of Murphy and Science collided and that cake had a bowling ball divot in it by the time it made it back to the reception.

Of course it was so sad we all had to laugh hysterically. Although I have moved over to the computer industry since then, I still have a lot of great memories of weddings I've photographed.

Next Featured Wedding Sneak Peek - Pure Unadulterated Eye Candy

All photos courtesy of Cassandra Dieterle Photography

Our next Featured Wedding on our website, Shan and Robert, will be pure unadulterated eye candy! Shan and Robert were married on May 10, 2008 at the incredible Paul Mitchell Estate in Lanikai, a suburb of Kailua, overlooking the ocean and the Mokolua Islands. Every detail of this gorgeous intimate affair was planned by Cassandra and David Dieterle of Honolulu Wedding Consultants, and I do mean everything -- from hand selecting all the vendors to creating the entire look of the event. Honolulu Wedding Consultants chose the color palette and motif and monogram for the event, and worked with a designer DK Designs to create the favors, ceremony programs and menu cards, and also provided some of the rentals. All this, without ever having met the couple, who lives in Japan, until a day or two before -- Amazing! The talented Cassandra, whose other company Cassandra Dieterle Photography, arranged for Visionari to photograph the wedding so she could really focus on the couple's special day.

For Shan and Robert's wedding cake, we used ivory fondant as the base color to play up the purple and pink tones used on the cake. Shan and Robert's custom monogram was added to one of the cake tiers and the cake was adorned with a selection of handcrafted flowers included roses, hydrangeas and ranunculus. Flavors of the cake were Rainbowlicious and Strawberries Chantilly. See more images of their cake on our website soon!

Other vendors involved with creating this beautiful event:

Fong from Floral Inspirations, who was responsible for all the floral designs.
Naomi from Les Saisons, who provided the gorgeous custom linens.
Kathleen from Gourmet Events Hawaii, who hired Nobu to provide the catering.
Yvonne from Yvonne Floral Design did the tent draping, the lounge area and some of the lighting.
Tent and chair rentals were provided by JMJ Rentals.

To see many more images of Shan and Robert's perfect day, you can look on our website in the coming days.

Aloha!