Beth's original request was just for about 200 cupcakes, which was lowered to about a measly 140 after RSVPs came in. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to do so much more than just cupcakes, and started planning a tablescape that would bring some magic to Beth's event, and reflect just how much she means to me. One of my favourite Dear Sugar quotes is, "Jump high and hard with intention and heart" - good advice for life, for marriage, and for dessert tables.
Beth and Chris didn't really have wedding colours, but I took the white and aqua/turquoise from their invitation and created this:
I had some serious help with this project, from Rushika's mad sous chef and crafting assistance the weekend before (not to mention transporting last minute supplies across the country), to the unbelievable generosity of my friend Sarah who packed her car full (literally, FULL) of all the supplies and drove to Peterborough with me where she stood on tables to hang decor, arranged cupcakes on the table, stacked cookies, and helped me keep cool under pressure.
Breaking It Down: The Cupcakes
I pre-baked the cupcakes at the beginning of August, and froze them at friend's house (thanks, Susan!) - aside from a little separation anxiety, it turned out just fine and was a good solution for dealing with the time crunch of the final days, and needing to transport everything 3 1/2 hours from my little kitchen for game day. I made some old favourites: lemon, brown sugar pound, devil's food, and yellow buttermilk cupcakes, all topped with a classic American buttercream in a 1M swirl, and carrot cake cupcakes, with cream cheese icing. I made silver and aqua glitter heart cupcake toppers, and used turquoise and white greaseproof wrappers from Sweets Treats Boutique.
Carrot cake was one of Beth's dad's favourite desserts, and the carrot cupcakes were a way of including him on the table, so I made different toppers for them, with a quote of his.
At the last wedding I did, there were customized cupcake toppers for each cupcake, saying what flavour they were - but it was a bit of a logistic pain the day of the event, so I decided for a different approach this time, using one pattern of cupcake wrapper for each flavour, and then making these flavour index cards for the table, using mini easels, heart punch outs of the wrappers, and stamped out cupcake names:
Breaking It Down: The Sweets
To round out the tablescape treats, I also made:
Lemon Marshmallows. Light, fluffy, tasty. Not quite the beautiful blossom shape I envisioned, but I haven't quite mastered the art of marshmallow fluff...
Cookie Dough Truffles. A staple on any dessert table I make, this time coated in white chocolate and topped with blue hearts. Rushika was a major help with assembling these, which is really a two-person job - it's crucial to attach the little hearts to the tuffles while the coating is still wet. The little hearts were an easy project - melting blue and white chocolate together, spreading thinly on some parchment paper, and then stamping out the hearts.
Photo Cookies. I have a fuzzy memory of Beth saying she didn't ever want her face on a cookie, but I took some creative license, and had Photo Finish Icing Sheets print off 5 photos of Beth and Chris (and one image from their invitation) in 2.5" circles, which I attached to sugar cookies with royal icing. I was thinking of piping on a boarder, but it seemed to be turning into a very busy table - so please consider this an example of how I streamlined and scaled back on this project.
I made a few polka dot and chevron plaques with the leftover dough.
Meringues. Oh, god, these meringues. The bane of my existence for the past week. The first batch I made went straight into the garbage. The second batch seemed good....until the next day when they re-hydrated into a sticky mess. They went back into the oven and seemed okay until wedding day - but it was damn hot in the dessert table room and they were a sticky disaster. Oh well, at least they were pretty.
Chocolate hearts. A simple, last-minute edition that proved really popular - just some melted white (and white + blue) chocolate in little hearts.
Breaking It Down: The Decor
Pulling the whole table together were a few decorative elements, some homemade, and a few outsourced for the sake of sanity.
I hand stamped napkins - a super easy and budget-friendly project. I looked at ordering custom napkins from Etsy, but at a price tag of $100+ it didn't seem worth it. Instead, I bought $4 napkins, and built a stamp with Beth & Chris's names on them, and then stamped each napkin. Genius.
Rushika made confetti for the table, building a "how sweet it is" stamp and stamping onto linen paper punch outs. Perfect!
To identify all the other sweets, I used labels that had little silver mason jar punch outs (and mini "how sweet it is" labels), and the name of the dessert stamped on next to them.
I used my small collection of milk glass vases and paper rosettes made by Beautiful Paper Crafts to add a little extra table decoration. So lovely.
The beautiful How Sweet It Is banner was made for me by GlamBanners, and I think it worked nicely with the blue and white paper lanterns to make the table feel like it filled the whole room, and tied the entire look of the table together.
Final Product: How Sweet It Was
Despite failing meringues, water dripping onto cupcakes, a hot as hell dessert room, and a few other little hiccups, I couldn't have been happier with the final product. It didn't even really feel like work - the hardest part was keeping all the details a surprise for Beth in the weeks leading up to it. It was an awesome table for an awesome friend - the look on her face makes it completely worth it.
