Amber and Mark's Starfish and Mosaic Wedding Cake

www.cakelava.com

Amber and Mark were married at one of our favorite wedding locations, the World of Aloha Estate, a lush property overlooking the Kahaluu Fishpond on the windward side of the island. Rick designed a striking squares wedding cake which incorporated starfish and seashells used throughout their wedding. When we saw Amber and Mark's wedding colors, Rick suggested a blue fondant cake with white accents and they loved the idea. Each tier had a different design on it with handmade items placed onto the cake. On the bottom tier, he went for a mosaic tile effect and a single giant starfish. There was a lot of subtle detailing on the cake that is difficult to see in the photo. This cake was delivered immediately after Stanley Chang's Primary Election party cake and we arrived during the couple's cocktail hour, just in time to see Amber looking gorgeous and she gave us a huge smile. She was so happy with her cake! We really enjoyed working with Amber and Mark throughout the design process and wish them both the best as husband and wife!

Guest Blogging on Half Baked - The Cake Blog

 

www.cakelava.com 

cake design by Rick Reichart

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to be a guest blogger on one of Rick's and my favorite blogs, "Half Baked - The Cake Blog".  cakelava is a Top Tier vendor on Half Baked and has been featured several times on the blog, including their "Fabulous Cake Fridays".  Carrie Sellman, the owner of Half Baked gave birth to a baby girl last week and recruited a number of people to blog on her behalf.  I ecstatically accepted the challenge to blog.  

There is an interesting story behind Allison and Marlon's wedding cake, shown above, which you can read about in my guest post today, "Hawaiian Fall Wedding".  Allison and Marlon, who reside in San Francisco were married on August 9, 2010 (8-9-10).  They were a super sweet couple and so easy to work with.  They gave us a beautiful fabric piece to use as inspiration, which you will read about on Half Baked. 

Also recruited for my guest blog feature was two top notch vendors who would help me create a Hawaiian Fall Wedding inspiration board.  Faigy from Decadent Cookie Favours in Toronto, Canada created the amazing cookies that perfectly matched the cake and Stacey from Emi Ink, located here on Oahu created beautiful custom invitations and guest cards for the blog.  Working with Faigy and Stacey was such a pleasure and I have been looking forward to our blog post ever since!  As you'll learn in the post, neither Faigy or Stacey saw the cake in advance.  They strictly worked off the same fabric piece we did.  Many, many thanks to Faigy, Stacey and Carrie, and of course Rick, for sharing their incredible talents with me, for a very good cause!  

For anyone interested in getting their hands on these incredible cookies or the paperie, please contact Decadent Cookie Favours or Emi Ink directly. 

www.thecakeblog.com/2010/09/hawaiian-fall-wedding.html

Next Featured Wedding - Melissa and Polar - The Cake!

Image by VISIONARI

Choosing our next Featured Wedding was a piece of cake!  Melissa and Polar were selected as a Featured Wedding couple for cakelava.com the minute we walked into the Ocean Front Oasis at the Oasis World Estates.  We saw the beautiful colors -- sumptuous yellows, ivories, dark grey and greens --  combined with decor which perfectly suited their location, an ocean front paradise with dark wood and Indonesian accents throughout.  We were greeted warmly by Alia of Parasol Events, the couple's wedding coordinator, Justin of Oasis World Estates, and Mike and Jon of VISIONARI who shot the stunning images shown here.  Gorgeous florals and luxe linens were provided by the always fabulous Yvonne Design, and guests dined on mouth watering cuisine provided by Christian and his staff at Cater to Me.   

We had been excited about Melissa and Polar's amazing wedding cake since Rick designed it.  The cake was inspired by a pattern the couple provided to us from their invitation that had a yellow colored underlay.  The making of their four tier fondant wedding cake with the lace overlay was a time consuming process of painstaking detail.  Rick made the entire pattern freehand, and the texture on it was incredible in person!  During the cake delivery, we were spotted by our sweet couple, Melissa and Polar who came over to us swooning about their cake.  We were so happy and wanted them to love their cake! 

Image by VISIONARI

September 2010 issue of Cake Central Magazine

The cake was a huge hit, not just with the couple and their guests but also caught the attention of Cake Central Magazine, who we had been in contact around that time for cakes for another issue.  The magazine loved the cake and said it would be published in their September issue.  We were ecstatic!  We were proud of Melissa and Polar's cake and wanted to be able to share it but instead secretly tucked it away until Cake Central Magazine was released.  We recently got our issue and also have uploaded images from Melissa and Polar's wedding on cakelava.com so people can see what the rest of their wedding looked like. In case you are wondering, the cake was all real and on the inside was our Hawaii Five-0 and Kona Toffee Crunch flavors.  Congratulations to Melissa and Polar on their wedding, their Featured Wedding, and for having their cake in Cake Central Magazine! 

Stanley Chang Celebrates with Cake

Over the weekend Hawaii held it's primary election. One of the candidates we were watching closely was Stanley Chang, who was running for Honolulu City Council District 4, which spans a good part of Oahu ranging from Ala Moana and Waikiki, Diamond Head, Kaimuki, Kahala, Aina Haina, Niu Valley, Hawaii Kai, and more! Rick and I became familiar with Stanley Chang through our client Rebecca who is an enthusiastic member of "Team Stanley" and worked on his campaign. We've made cakes for Rebecca before and each time she always gives Rick a lot of creative freedom and Stanley's cake was no different. She gave us some background information on Stanley Chang, along with his website, votestanleychang.com . We knew the districts he served and that they encompassed a huge amount of Oahu and then Rick had the challenge of figuring out how best to represent the district, Hawaii and Stanley Chang specifically.

If you've ever been to Hawaii during election time, you'll recall that the candidates hit the streets with their campaign signs and wave to cars during the morning and evening rush hour commute. Everyone does this, including the mayoral and gubernatorial candidates. It's part of the "Aloha spirit" and has been that way for years. Since the sign waving is a big part of any political campaign in Hawaii we had planned to include "Stanley Chang" signs on the cake throughout his districts.

www.cakelava.com

www.cakelava.com

On the cake, District 4 was represented amongst the three tiers. On the bottom tier was Ala Moana, Waikiki and Diamond Head, which was represented by the famous Diamond Head crater and lot of high-rise buildings found throughout Waikiki. The second tier was more of the residential areas as shown by the artwork of the houses. On the top tier was Koko Head Crater, found on the southeast side of Oahu, and represents the Hawaii Kai, Niu Valley and Kuliouou areas. At the base of the cake was Stanley Chang's motto: "Fresh vision for a responsible and responsive government". The cake looked amazing in person, full of color and it screamed "Hawaii!" and we hoped "Victory!" as well.

The cake was delivered to a private home in Kahala where Stanley Chang's party was held. We didn't have a chance to meet Stanley because we had to deliver a wedding cake. We heard from Stanley and Rebecca the cake was a huge hit! Just as we had hoped, Stanley Chang's celebration party cake turned into a Victory cake as he won his primary! Coincidentally, on Monday Rick and I were driving through "District 4" and saw Stanley Chang waving a sign thanking voters. We waved back and beeped at him. We were so happy to see him after making his cake and winning District 4 City Council. Go Stanley!! votestanleychang.com