By someone who has never made one before
So...it has been a while since I posted anything. When it rains it pours they say. However, I have been busy. I have been baking a long time, but I have never decorated anything fancier than a birthday cake. I pride myself to be a flavor baker. My cakes are first and foremost tasty. Prettiness has always been a bonus. So when I told my brother and my new sister in law that I would make their wedding cake I plunged myself into a world in which really I knew very little about. Really I never even covered a cake in fondant before and I had six months to figure out how to build an entire wedding cake. It sounds like a long time, but when you have no clue what you are doing, are busy with school, housework, errands and a very active two year old it really amounts to no time at all.
The first step was to pick a cake and learn how to cover it. After trial and error I went with an orange almond cake filled with apricot jam and iced with orange flavored Italian Buttercream. The next step was to find a fondant that would work. I did an internet search for "fondant recipe for hot and humid climates" and I came upon Veena's art of cakes blog. She has a wonderful vanilla fondant recipe that really is good enough to eat.
At the same time I bought a batch of a top of the line commercial brand. Yes, it did work like a dream. However, just the smell of it made me want to gag. So I couldn't actually bring myself to put it on one of my cakes. It would ruin the flavor and as I said before that is the whole reason I bake. So the homemade recipe wasn't quite as white or as smooth, but it was tasty and that is what I was looking for. So I took my measuring mat and rolled enough of the dough to cover a six inch practice cake. Step one complete I had my first ever cake rolled in fondant! So, I rolled it a little too thick, but I was pretty proud for my first try.
Step two was to figure out what to put on these two cakes and learn how to do it. In a feverish frenzy I looked for ideas and I didn't quite think anything was good enough. Then, it dawned on me. I was going to make the whole family in figures and a camera shaped cake for the groom's cake! That's when I ran into a problem. I had no clue how to do any of that. 
I started with the camera cake. I looked around for ideas online and also asked my teacher at school. I had to use a sturdy cake and freeze it in order to carve it. The better I carved the cake the better my end product would be. So I made a pound cake and froze it. I found some round cutters and I took out my ruler and my toothpicks and cut out some shapes. I stuck them together with buttercream and covered it in chocolate fondant that I also pulled out of Veena's blog. It was passable. I very much wanted to do a lens out of caramel and even though it initially worked it would not hold up more than an hour in Florida humidity. I filed that away as to something I would have to ask one of my teachers when I took a future class in caramel. I wrote detailed notes on what I would do differently for the wedding and moved on. I had other things to figure out 
Next step was to figure out how to make figures. I started off easy. I took an opportunity to make a cake and give it to my aunt to take to her church for Easter. I practiced my fondant rolling (this makes 2 now), my border creation and figure modelling. I made her a cake with a rope border and a bunny on grass. I figured out really quickly I needed to do something about getting some one on one help with making those figures. The bunny was kind of cute, but human figures are much more difficult and I wasn't going to be able to make them without some kind of assistance.
And low and behold luck was on my side! I was able to find a cake supply store near me that just happened to be giving classes on modeling. I was excited so I signed up and spent an entire Saturday afternoon trying to make a Disney character. The result was not very pretty. But at least I had the idea. This particular doll was quite chesty, oh boy and not very kid friendly. Good thing I wasn't making a birthday cake!
Three weeks before the wedding I embarked on my task. First, I made my icings and froze them, then I made my fondants and set them aside. I began making body parts and building figures, covered cake boards and made seashells out of modelling chocolate all for the big day. I was surprised how much time this could take. The week of the wedding I baked macaroons for party favors baked the cakes, filled them and refrigerated them. I brought together everything I had learned over the past six months in order to make a leveled layer cake. I assembled three orange almond cakes and one chocolate raspberry rectangular cake as well as the carved camera. A few days before the wedding I covered the camera cake and painted on the details the following day. I didn't have as much time to work on that as I had planned, but I went with it anyways. I was out of time! 
The day of the wedding I was behind. I still had not covered the chocolate layer cake and had not rolled any borders for any of the cakes. I went to the reception site early and finished the work there. Fridge space becomes a major commodity when you are working with all these baked products. I covered the cakes and went ahead and put in supports for all the tiers of cake. I cut up dowel rods and leveled them and placed them on each of the tiers that were going to hold up a cake. I built the tiered cake and almost had a heart attack when I had to move it back and forth from the the prep table to the cake table.That thing was so heavy.
I placed the cakes on the table and then placed all the figures and the seashells I had made for them. The figures were not perfect either, but considering the first chesty doll they were much better. I placed the seashells all over the cake table and around the cake for decoration. In retrospect I should have used a smaller table, but that was all we had available at the time. Finally the project was ready! Now all I had to do was run to my house get dressed and drive to the beach in time for the wedding. That's when I realized that I had an hour and 15 minutes to do that and my house was nowhere near the beach. Yikes! I really had to run, but I made to the beach at 4:59, talk about cutting it close!
My final creation was certainly not perfect, but at the end of the day the bride, groom and their kids were ecstatic over the cake and that was really my goal all along. They had a great day and I was lucky enough to be one of the ones that helped that happen. So for all of you out there that are scared to do something for someone just go for it. You might surprise yourself or at the very least and most important you might help make that someone happy.
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