The Process of Making a Wedding Cake

     A wedding cake is just part of all that makes a wedding.  Whether you have a small, one-tiered cake or a larger, seven-tiered cake one thing is important.  Not only does it need to look great, it needs to taste great as well.  I'm familiar with cakes and how to work with them but one aspect that will always make me a little nervous is the appearance. 
     I made my first wedding cake for our friends Angela & Cole's wedding.  They didn't want a large cake since they had a dessert bar as well, which was a blessing in disguise since I've never made a tiered cake before.  While I've made a cake before, this set a level of stress inside myself that I hadn't felt in quite some time.  No one wants to be responsible for disappointing a bride and groom and I'm no exception.  I've spent my career in food dealing with the savory side so this was a whole new world for me.
     First and foremost, you have to make sure that you understand the wants of the bride and groom.  Once you understand the flavors, size, style, and appearance in mind, you have to start planning.  Given that this was my first attempt, I spent quite a bit of time looking through web pages, books, and watching videos to gather any tips or techniques that I could.  It was a three day process since I had to work in the middle of it all.
     On day one I made all of the separate details, the orange mousse, two champagne cake layers, simple syrup, and Swiss buttercream.  I waited several hours to make sure the cake was completely cool before building the cake.  Slicing the layers in half horizontally, filling them with mousse and stacking all four layers was rather easy.  Confidence was setting in and I believed that I had this under control.
     The second day is when I started the decoration.  Icing the cake and making sure everything was smooth and even was time consuming but not as much as the small details.  Given that I'm a little hard on myself when it comes to anything in food, I had my worries on whether or not Angela & Cole would like their cake.  I will readily admit that I could have done better in terms of decoration but that all comes with practice.  If I get more chances to make wedding cakes, it will only get better.
     You can see my amateur attempt at building a cake below.