Wedding planning tip: cake timing

Towering square tiered cake featuring black and white checks for a racing themed wedding, designed by Rick of cakelava.  Rick was truly ahead of his time, as he was designing ombre hued cakes before ombre even became a wedding trend!  Photo by Chrissy Lambert Photography.

Here's a simple piece of advice related to your wedding cake, particularly if planning your wedding on your own.

Chocolate ribbons stream down the sides of this four-tiered wedding cake designed by the Halekulani.  Photo by Visionari.

Ask your cake baker or designer about the number of hours that the cake can be left out of refrigeration.

Yet another stunning creation by Rick Reichart of cakelava.  This towering cake combines a modern and whimsical look, with varying shapes and heights.  Photo by Sieber Studio.

Make sure then that the time between having your cake delivered and the time of your cake cutting and serving is less than the maximum number of hours that the cake can be unrefrigerated.

Another fabulous cake!  This show-stopping cake was created by Cake Works for a wedding we planned at the Sheraton Waikiki.  Photo by Eclat Photography.

Note that in Hawaii, particularly with outdoor weddings, we have some particularly warm and sunny days, and the length of time for a cake to be left outdoors thus shortens.

Pretty in Pink - cascading fresh flowers in shades of pink adorn this simply elegant cake.  Photo by Dave Miyamoto and Company.

The last thing anyone wants to see is a beautiful wedding cake that starts to slide, collapse, or melt so again, be sure to consult your cake provider to ensure that your cake looks its best throughout its time on display.

cakelava designed this one of a kind cake for our couple, Deb and Keola, who chose shades of purple and yellow for their wedding.  Photo by AmodoPhoto.

Happy Planning!
Mona
neu events
(formerly Weddings by Grace and Mona)

Gown-inspired wedding cakes

I love to weave together as many details of the wedding as possible, providing for a more cohesive, and much more personalized look. One way of doing so, is to have the design of the bride's wedding gown reflected in the design of the cake. The result is usually gorgeous - a very subtle, but meaningful way to pull the wedding look together. Here are some examples.

To create this beautiful (and since, oft replicated cake), Katrina of Cake Gallery went to the bride's gown salon to take a photo of her wedding dress. The trim of her gown and embroidery details are reflected in the design of the cake.

Photos by David Murphey

For this next beauty of a cake, we sent cakelava the link for the bride's wedding gown, which then became the design of the cake. Notice the delicate lace and the scalloped v-neck area, along with the gorgeous bow, complete with silver brooch accent. This cake, too, has since been duplicated a number of times, and with a cake as beautiful as this, it is easy to see why.

Photos by Mark Nomura

For this particular wedding cake from Cake Works, the poor groom was kept in the dark as to what his wedding cake would look like, for fear that it might giveaway the design of the bride's wedding gown, which was to be a surprise for him. The pretty ruffles and buttons on the cake mimicked the gown perfectly! Clearly, beautiful gowns inspire some of the most beautiful cakes!

Photos by Eugene Kam Photography

Wedding Style Tip #5: "theme-ing" your wedding

When designing your wedding, the key is to create a comprehensive look and feel, infusing the theme into every element. Make sure to reflect the theme, style, and tone of the wedding in everything from the invitations and stationery (often times the very first "taste" of what is to come) to flowers, food, favors, music, etc.. To best illustrate, allow me to provide an example.

Janelle and Alex's "Sweet" Wedding
Janelle and Alex shared a love for dining, cooking, and above all, a love for sweets. It only made perfect sense that their wedding should reflect their common passion for dessert - cupcakes in particular, deriving from the yummy cupcakes that Janelle makes for Alex.

The first impression...
To kick off their wedding, Janelle and Alex went to work, whipping up a batch of frosted cupcakes, each decorated with a letter of the alphabet, that when lined up, spelled "SAVE THE DATE." They took a photo of their cupcakes and with it, laid out a sweet and simple postcard, informing guests of the wedding celebration to come. Naturally, Janelle and Alex chose a chocolate icing and pink letters, hinting at the colors of their wedding.

Do me a favor...
Naturally, what better favor would fit the occasion than a candy and sweets buffet for guests to help themselves to, filling their own custom-labeled favor jar with whatever they desired. Included in the sweet buffet, were home-made Rice Krispy treats in original and strawberry (to go with the color theme, of course).

Center of attention
To further allude to the theme of cupcakes and sweets, Janelle and Alex enlisted the services of none other than Hawai'i's rock star of cakes, Rick Reichart of cakelava, who created giant cupcakes to serve as centerpieces on every other table. A do-it-yourself cupcake kit in mixing bowls filled with cupcake mix, sprinkles, and marshmallows adorned the rest of the tables.

Sweet sips...
To keep things cool, guests enjoyed Thai Iced Coffee topped with little dollops of pink cotton candy in Irish coffee mugs, concocted by stellar caterer, Ginniberries.

Show-stopper...

What really made Janelle and Alex's wedding unique, was the most original and fun wedding cake ever, a giant turtle hugging a giant cupcake, another fabulous cakelava creation.

Photos by Stephen Ludwig

Featured Wedding #6: Holly and Paul

Holly and Paul knew they wanted something intimate and special with only 50 of their closest friends and family attending from as far away as New York. Booking our Complete Consultation and Coordination Service 8 months prior to their wedding date, we jumped in with all our might to pull together all their wishes.

A color scheme of blues and greens with accents of yellow was brought together with cattleya, blue hydrangea, white phalenopsis orchids, yellow rananculus, yellow cymbidium orchids and yellow plumeria. Even a seemingly minor detail such as a brightly colored Thai orchid sitting on the lip of each goblet adds pizazz and color to complete the tabletop decor. The overall look: colorful, festive, and tropical - perfect for an elegant outdoor wedding in Hawai'i.

Holly's romantic, cattleya and yellow calla lily bouquet was characterized by vintage charm, and a locket dangled sweetly from her bouquet as a tribute to a lost loved one.

The venue for the quiet outdoor affair was Moli’I Gardens at Kualoa Ranch where guests would be able to see the famous façade used in the movie “50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.

Holly and Paul are avid baseball fans and wanted to incorporate their love for the sport into their wedding cake. Rick Reichart of cakelava, used their idea when putting together the 3-tier amazing piece of art which included the cornflower blue and green color choices of their florals.

Rick designed two figures to look like Holly and Paul sitting by the bottom of the cake.

Manoa Strings played wedding music for the ceremony and kept guests entertained throughout the cocktail hour.

All florals designed by Wendy Balidoy of Spinning Web

All photography courtesy of Kris Labang Photography

Catering provided by Indigo

Linen provided by Naomi Lee, Les Saison

Emcee, Teley Brandon, ShowTime DJ’s and Grand Finale Events

Entertainment for ceremony provided by Manoa Strings Quartet
Cake designed by Rick and Sasha Reichart, cakelava

Congratulations Rick Reichart of cakelava!

After much anticipation, the fans of Rick Reichart of cakelava witnessed him in his element when Food Network first aired their Sponge Bob challenge this past Sunday. For this challenge, the four competitors needed to craft a cake for a seven-year-0ld's birthday, whose favorite television show is "Sponge Bob Squarepants." Each of the four competitors was given one character to feature on their cake; Rick's character was Sponge Bob.

All the competitors brought their best efforts to this challenge and in the end, it was a tough call for the judges to decide which cake would be at the lucky boy's birthday party and get the $10,000 cash prize. The final decision...Rick came in SECOND place, a mere two points behind the winner of the challenge. What an amazing accomplishment for Rick, the "newbie" of the group, in his very first Food Network Challenge.

We salute Rick for his outstanding performance and for putting Hawai'i on the map for noteworthy cake artistry. Congratulations Rick, an amazing cake designer, and Sasha, his supportive wife and business whiz behind cakelava!

cakelava's Food Network Challenge to Air in April

As many already know, Hawai'i's very own cakelava participated in a Food Network challenge; no one but the show's producers and the challenge participants know the outcome, so to find out, tune in to the Food Network for the much anticipated airing of "Food Network Challenge: Sponge Bob Birthday Cakes." Here are the dates:

Apr 04, 2010: 8:00 PM ET/PT

Apr 05, 2010: 3:00 AM ET/PT

Apr 07, 2010: 7:00 PM ET/PT

The Food Network, on several occasions in the past couple years, invited cakelava to take part in their show and this one in particular was a great one for cakelava to be able to participate in for their very first time, as Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants show is one of the most popular shows on TV. Challengers invited to compete in Food Network challenges represent some of the very best in the industry and invitation is definitely an honor.

We're all so proud of cakelava and are looking forward to rooting for them on April 4th when the show airs and the results made public for the very first time!

In the meantime, enjoy some photos of cakelava cakes for clients of Weddings by Grace and Mona, a small sampling of cakelava's beautiful cakes for weddings during their five years in business in Hawai'i...


Images from (L-R) by name of couple for whom the cake was created: Andrea and Pete, Annabella and David (photo by Chrissy Lambert), Candice and Timothy (photo by Chrissy Lambert), Candice and Timothy (photo by Chrissy Lambert), Carisse and Todd (photo by Chrissy Lambert), Carly and Matthew (photo by Dave Miyamoto and Co.), Heather and Randall (photo by Christiaan Phleger), Janelle and Alex (photo by Stephen Ludwig), Janelle and Alex (photo by Stephen Ludwig), Kindy and Will (photo by Dylan Dawson)