Wine a Bit

This wedding cake was done for a long-time friend of the family. Her main wedding color was wine, and she had orange as an accent. Her flowers were white hydrangeas, wine-colored mums, and tiger lilies.

I researched pictures of tiger lilies on the internet and found 3 different ones to recreate. One was a traditional tiger lily, with curved petals and brown spots. Another was a golden-yellow lily with orange shading, and the third was a bright orangy-red. These I made using fondant. After I had them shaped how I liked, I placed them in empty egg cartons to dry. If I had simply laid them on the table to dry before the fondant had stiffened, they would have dried in a heap. The egg cartons allowed me to rest the flowers in the little nooks and drape the petals over the little dividers. Perfect fondant-flower-driers!

I then created the mums and hydrangeas with different fondant cutters, using my fingers to shape each one. I covered all my flowers and allowed to dry for several days to ensure they'd remain stiff while handling (the heat from your hands can sometimes cause fondant to bend if it's not thoroughly dry). Once dry, I airbrushed each flower individually, and painted on any details.
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Then I assembled my cake and iced it. I mixed a combination of wine and brown in my airbrush and sprayed around the bottom of each tier. Then I placed my flowers in a "cascade" down the cake, and used green icing to pipe leaves. I placed on their topper and added flowers around it, and finished it all off with a white border.