A Life Full of Laughter: Can't Keep Us From Our Cake

You know how much I love cake. It shouldn't be a surprise that our cakes were one of my favorite details.

It was beautiful. I absolutely loved it. Three tiers of vanilla buttercream pink creamy goodness ... sorry, started salivating there for a second.

The groom's cake was just as wonderful. Two tiers of chocolate cake, with chocolate buttercream, chocolate ganache and chocolate-covered strawberries. Check out the bride and groom strawberries on top!

Wait, what is Mr. Hyena doing with a sword?

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About two weeks before the wedding, MIL Hyena gave us a call asking if we'd like to cut our cake with the family saber. We didn't know that we had a family saber, but we agreed it would be pretty cool. As the wedding approached, we learned the history behind it: Mr. Hyena's great-aunt's grandfather had fought in the Spanish-American War in 1898, and this was his sword. After his death in 1917, it was passed down through the family and has been used to cut wedding cakes since the 1940s. MIL and FIL Hyena used it to cut their wedding cake, and when SIL and BIL Hyena got married at the beginning of July, they used it as well!

It's hard to finagle a saber!

We fed each other nicely. That cake was going in our mouths, not on our faces!

It was delicious! We moved on to the groom's cake.

I promise Mr. Hyena wasn't stabbing the cake! I was, however, licking frosting off my fingers. I'm dainty like that. :)

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Mr. Hyena took his last moments of playing with a sword on our wedding day to stab a strawberry.



And of course I tried to eat it. :)

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Then Mr. Hyena's aunts converged on the table to cut slices for everyone else! (With an actual cake knife. This saber thing is difficult!)

Are you incorporating any family traditions in your wedding?

unless otherwise noted, all photos by Danny Boyle Photography

Previously on A Life Full of Laughter:

• "The One Where We Get Practice Married"

• "The One Where The Girls Put On Their Faces"

• "The One With The Beautiful Words"

• "The One Where The Dudes Get Sexy"

• "The One With The Big White Dress"

• "The One Where We Smize"

• "The One Where We Don't See Each Other"

• "The One With All The Walking"

• "The One Where It's Official"

• "The One After The Ceremony"

• "The One With Our Wonderful Families"

• "The One With The Bride and Groom"

• "The One Where We Dance"

• "The One Where We Mix 'n' Mingle"

• "The One Where Everyone Else Dances Too"

We Just Can't Wait

We never intended to save the top tier of our wedding cake. We had decided if we wanted cake on our one-year anniversary, we would go back to the bakery and get a new cake. We didn't think we had ordered THAT much cake, but somehow we wound up with the top tier of both the wedding cake AND the groom's cake after the reception.

Well, we thought while snacking on the groom's cake topper, we'll freeze (what's left of) them before our honeymoon and do the traditional thing and eat them on our anniversary. But in the days before the honeymoon, we couldn't get those delicious cakes out of our heads. One year was too far away!  We agreed instead to pick one for celebrating one month of marriage, and the second for six months.

Pardon the messy stovetop. We're still unpacking and getting organized!

Yeahhh ... we had both of those toppers devoured within a week of getting back from our honeymoon.

I promise it looked fancier at the wedding. Here it was smushed and at a weird angle, and half-eaten of course.

They were calling us! And now that they're gone, Mr. Hyena and I keep asking each other, "So there's more cake, right?"

Unfortunately no. But we are for sure going back to get our one-year anniversary cake!

Are you planning to save your top tier(s)? Or, if you're already married, did you manage to save your cake for a whole year?

Music Good Enough to Eat

Where we left off on the music front, we had decided to emcee our own wedding. This turned out to be a really fun idea; Mr. Hyena and I did all our recording in GarageBand on my MacBook in one night, and it didn't take very long. Once all the serious announcements were done, we spent a good long time playing with the settings and singing ridiculous things just to see how awesome we could sound. ("I Will Survive" duet in Diva voice featuring Mr. H and my kitty-boo? Yes, please!)

Anyway, we decided to overlay Mr. Hyena's emcee-ing over the intro to the songs for each event, because he doesn't want there to be silence and then HIS BOOMING VOICE in the middle of our reception. I am SUPER PUMPED for the songs we picked. Especially for the cake cutting.

I had a vibe I was going for: I wanted the music to be cohesive, and I wanted to choose something unique that you don't hear at every wedding. I wanted songs that were upbeat and danceable, in case it didn't take that long, and people wanted to get back to dancing. I chose a few different songs because I intend to cut the cake with Mr. Hyena and then eat a piece or three. Maybe other people will want to do the same. :)

If not, that's okay. More cake for me.

Mmm sexy cowboys singing while I nosh on buttercream. What could be better?

What will play when you cut your cake? Do your pets sing duets?

Hello, Cupcake!

I've already talked about our cakes, but while wandering around Target with a friend one night, I stumbled upon these two books:

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Ya'll, there are so many adorable cupcake decorating ideas in these books! I knew I had to share them. Also, there's step-by-step directions not only for the correct way to frost/decorate cupcakes, but for each idea. Awesome, because otherwise I would never be able to figure it out!

Anyone DIYing a cupcake tower? There were so many ideas in these books that I'd never even considered before in cupcake decorating. Check it out:

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Do I spy a potential groom's (cup)cake?

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So prettyyyy. I think everyone should make cute cupcakes. And send them to me. So I can eat them for breakfast right now. :)

Are you doing cupcakes instead of a cake? What will they look like?

Let Them Eat Cake AND Ice Cream!

Just kidding. I'm only going to talk about cake. But every time I hear the phrase "Let them eat cake," I picture this cartoon:

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I've always loved Gary Larson's "The Far Side." I have a messed up sense of humor. 

But anyway, onto some cake piccies!

I have a friend who is into cake decorating, and many moons ago (well before engagement was even a topic of conversation), she posted a link to a Dallas cake decorator's Web site, and while flipping through the pages, I found my first cake love:

via Frosted Art / Cake by Bronwen Weber

So beautiful! I still love this, but as we have planned, it started to seem too fancy for our semi-formal wedding. Off I went in search of inspiration!

via The Knot / Photo by Drew Newman Photography / Cake by Frosted Pumpkin Gourmet Inc.

via The Knot / Photo by Photography by Vanessa / Cake by Barton Creek Lakeside Country Club

From a bridal fair I attended.

via The Knot / Photo by Glen Abog Photography / Cake by Rolf's Patisserie

via The Knot / Photo by Dachowski Photography / Cake by Jacques Pastries

via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Red Ribbon Studio / Cake by Cocoa + Fig

via The Knot / Photo by Rachel McGinn Photography / Cake by Ann's Cake Pan

via The Knot / Photo by Angie Silvy Photography / Cake by Shelton's Wedding Cake Designs

This is one Mom Hyena found while out shopping with one of her friends. We call it the "Dr. Seuss cake."

When I had gathered these images, Mr. H and I went to visit with a couple of bakeries, and we've decided what we want for both the wedding and groom's cakes!

Prior to this outing, Mr. Hyena had told me he wanted a Texas Rangers groom's cake, with blue icing (bright blue — the kind that stains your teeth in all your pictures), and I was RELIEVED when he selected a nice-looking, two-tier chocolate cake with drippy ganache and strawberries in little tuxedos! :)

As for the main wedding cake, we do not want to save the top tier (if we want cake on our anniversary, we'll go get a new cake that will actually taste good!), so we'll be having a three-tier French Vanilla cake with buttahcreme (mmmmmmmmmmmmm), with ribbon around the base of each layer, and edible pearls all over! It'll look similar to this, but without swirls or rhinestones. There will be pink ribbon around each tier and pink peonies on top.

From the same bridal fair.

What's your favorite part: the cake or the icing? I think my answer is pretty obvious. :)

Foooooood

We had our tasting with our caterer a month or so ago, and man, my parents are STILL talking about how good the food was! They came into town, and had planned to go to the tasting and then out to dinner. Oh, parents, you have so much to learn about wedding planning! :) We left STUFFED and really, really excited about our wedding food.

I'll try to paint some word-pictures to help describe how epically awesome D'Vine Cuisine is! Here's what will be on our hors d'oeuvres menu:

• Stuffed Mushrooms — Mmmmmm. Two-bite-sized mushrooms absolutely STUFFED with goat cheese and bacon! Mmmm, bacon. Mmmushrooms! I was sold before they were even served.

• Double Tomato Bruschetta — A light, tomato-y yumfest! Very rich-flavored tomatoes and light crusty bread. I think there was some kind of cheese on these too, but in my food coma afterward I may have forgotten some details.

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• Chicken Quesadillas — Since most of the hors d'oeuvres are well-seasoned, we wanted something that would appeal to palates that aren't necessarily big on some of our other items. We're going to have several children at the wedding, and I have a friend who has sensitive taste buds, so we want them to enjoy the food as well. These were pretty simple and self-explanatory.

• Mini Portobello Mushroom & Sun-Dried Tomato Quesadillas — Are you sensing a theme here yet? I'm totally in love with mushrooms and tomatoes. But not to worry! Of the many people who were at our tasting (me, MOH Rachel, and my parents; Matt and his parents) several of them were initially hesitant about some of these items, but ended up loving it all anyway!

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• Brie Rounds on crackers: Pesto & Pine Nuts, Mango Chutney, and Cranberry Pecan — Okay, this was the one I was most hesitant about. See ... I really don't like cheese. (Insert collective gasp here.) Psh, whatever. These melty, melty brie rounds had deeeelish toppings! It didn't have such a cheesy flavor like sandwich cheese, for example, so that's probably why I liked them so much. All of us had a different favorite; I looooved the pesto (pesto is the besto!), my mom loved the mango chutney, and Matt's mom loved the cranberry pecan! Matt was concerned this was maybe too much cheese, but we couldn't decide on one to cut! Oops. :)

I just ate lunch and I'm already hungry again thinking about all this food! We'll also have tea and water service, and we'll be serving beer and wine, so I'm pretty sure everyone will be just as sated after the reception!

What were you most excited about from your menu?