A little road trip...

I received my undergraduate degree from Millersville University which is smack dab in the middle of Lancaster County. If you haven't been to Lancaster then I would definitely recommend it! It has a natural beauty that is hard to describe. When Danielle contacted me in October about possibly doing her wedding cake at Lauxmont Farms in Lancaster, I had a few thoughts go through my head. The first, "Wow, Lancaster County in the beginning of May is going to be GORGEOUS!" And then, "Oh my god, how the hell am I supposed to get a wedding cake down there in one piece?!" Lancaster is approximately 3 hours from my basement kitchen and if you are from PA then you know how terrible our roads are after the winter season. I've delivered a cake down to Lancaster once before but it wasn't a stacked cake and it was covered in fondant. Needless to say... I was nervous!!! 

Danielle and Jonathan had a color scheme of white, light pinks, and navy. It isn't your typical color scheme but it looked stunning, one of my favorites actually. We played around with a few ideas for the cake but settled on the design below. A white buttercream cake with navy ribbons and a full cascade of gum paste peonies, hydrangeas, and filler flowers. 

Original cake sketch

 I made all of the flowers by hand and I was actually going to do a tutorial for the peonies until I realized how much work actually goes into each flower... I decided my time was better spent working on the flowers themselves than the tutorial. Maybe next time! I used petal dust and luster dust to accent the flowers and leaves as well. 

One of the twelve peonies that I made for the flower cascade. It was as big as my hand! 

When it finally came time to transport the cake, I knew that the safest way was going to be unstacked. I had to wrap each tier individually, pack it into a cake box, and then surround that with freezer packs. I also had to endure 3.5 hours (thanks to Central PA traffic, I had to sit in a traffic jam for almost 45 minutes) of blasting the AC. When I finally got to Lancaster I could barely feel my legs or fingers from being so cold, but the tiers made it through the trip without a single issue (thank god!!). I was able to get the cake stacked Friday night and ready for the flowers to be applied the following morning. 

The cakes before the trip to Lancaster!

Arranging the flowers took almost 3 hours. I never have an exact idea of what a flower cascade is going to look like, just a certain amount of main flowers that I intend to use. All in all, I ended up using 12 peonies and a ridiculous amount of hydrangeas and fillers. There was a few casualties with gum paste leaves and a few hydrangeas but the peonies held up like champs. 

Half-way there!!

The cake was delivered to the Rotunda venue and it was breathtaking. Seriously... I was speechless. 

The view of the Susquehanna River from the Rotunda

I cannot get over how beautiful this venue was and my cake paled in comparison! 

I took so many pictures because I wanted to capture the beauty of everything but pictures didn't do it justice. The cake made it to the venue without any issue and as soon as I started driving away, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders... until I realized that I had a big ol' wedding coming up the following weekend. Such is the life of a busy baker. 

A close up of the cascade

At the venue.. before I realized I forgot to put the cake onto the cake stand! 

The finished product! Cake stand and all!! 

I'm so happy with how beautiful this cake turned out, and I hope that Danielle and Jonathan were as please with it as I was. I wish them nothing but happiness in the years to come! 

Thanks for reading and the continued support! 

Always,

Sarah