#treecake

I made this one from scratch two years ago, but I never posted it. It's based on a classic cake we have here. It's called a "Treecake" since the dough is baked in individual layers, creating different colors like the rings of a tree.

For Natasha and Tyler's wedding cake in Harlan, Kentucky, I really wanted to do something that was out of the box. The concept for the cake was an abstracted version of a tree stump with various fungi and mushrooms that we saw when we visited the wedding venue, Camp Blanton, an intriguing past boy scout camp in Harlan, Kentucky. The base of the cake has a tree trunk texture that is a more subtle, abstracted version of a tree. The mushrooms/fungi form a sort of natural living version of bas relief. The mushrooms have been turned gold as if by the wave of a magic wand. The sugar flowers finish the cake off similar to the concept of a fresh flower garland laying over tree trunks in the forest.

The cake needed to be a lot of things. It needed to have a fairytale essence, yet also an overgrown forest and woodland quality. These are dual aspects of Natasha's personality. Since Natasha is a photographer and artist, something avant garde and editorial felt appropriate. After all, she did dawn the most dazzling red wedding dress and have a live wolf at the wedding! I can't help but include a few extra images of my beautiful best friend on her wedding day. The wedding was featured in Kentucky Bride Magazine. You can purchase the issue here.

My parents, Deron, and I helped on the fresh florals, concept development, and decoration for Natasha’s wedding. My husband Deron married Natasha and Tyler, alongside me, and our family based team, making the cake, so to say we were crazy doing multiple things is an understatement. Natasha left her own reception and took all of the cake images herself, as we wanted to do an outside cake set-up. Our team had just rushed back from teaching a class in Orlando the weekend prior to Natasha’s wedding. I was also in Natasha’s wedding as the bridesmaid. We were overwhelmed

Deron and I followed a similar pattern for our own recent wedding. We were crazy with multiple hats to wear, too. Natasha’s wedding was our first go around. A similar chaos unfolded at our wedding, but with more hands and slight changes the second time. Natasha and her second shooters took the images at our wedding. She was also a bridesmaid. Natasha was also hurt from a recent car accident, which presented her difficulty, but we figured it out in the end the best we could. We did mostly everything. We made our own wedding cake. Generally at weddings, my team and I only do one thing, have four to five people fawning and babying over only the cake for the client, using any and all of our combined talents on that one object. Natasha and I took on a lot at both of our weddings, had our own difficulties, but somehow we got it all together in the end. 

I think Natasha’s cake turned out to be very interesting and she was happy with the outcome. When you consider how busy we were with other things that day, even more so. I feel the same way about our wedding cake. It’s amazing that either concept was completed at all, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Natasha and I try to help each other do what we can given whatever the current circumstances are. Friends allow you the ability to be experimental and try new things. When you are a friend, as well as a vendor, you’re there to help them on their overall wedding, not just by making the cake or taking the images, and they are there to help you. Both of our wedding cakes and weddings are a testament to what can be done, even when you’re the planners, the florists, the brides, the bridesmaids, friends, the cake artists, and photographer all in one, for one event. 

There are also challenges in working with someone that is so close to you. I always try to make a connection with my client by noticing certain aesthetic patterns they have and choose, even when they don’t notice these patterns themselves. There is always, of course, a degree of structure and separation between us. Leaving room to let their true underlying personality unfold in image-sharing and in our conversations, but still, there exists some separation from our day to day lives. Reflecting back on this cake now, I can remember how challenging it was to know the person that the cake is for so deeply and to be around them daily. It presents a similar challenge to doing something for yourself, especially in waiting for the concept that could potentially tie all of Natasha’s interests together for the design.

You're wanting to make that connection and are listening closely for any small drop of a pin in conversation that may make you shift something, for better or worse. Different things are said, hints are given. Different requirements discussed, mushrooms were a constant element that Natasha wanted to use, and different things were said that could possibly throw you off last minute. It is challenging to be given a variety of sometimes seemingly disparate elements to work in. Working with someone who is such a close friend does not allow you, in some ways, that completely outward perspective of looking in. I know Natasha feels similarly about working with me. When two people have such strong aesthetics, one is always trying to make sure they meet the wishes of the other, while still trying to keep their own signatures. Since the recipient is so close to the project, it can be ever evolving. As I recall, it was hard to get a solid grip on a working concept that tied everything together. 

When we visited the venue and saw the mushrooms growing like natural bas relief on abandoned trees, that was the concept that finally grabbed my and my mother’s attention. We stayed behind off of the trail immediately, and we went with the instinct to work with something that was found on the property where the wedding was going to take place. The juxtaposition is unlikely between vibrant fresh garden flowers and a mushroom ridden woodland tree. These things typically do not grow side by side. So, the whimsical and magical feeling that the concept brings is that someone, in our imagination, (we don’t know who) would have had to come about and place the garden florals on the abandoned tree.

I’m happy that Natasha loved both her cake and wedding. We loved our wedding, too, and are grateful for supportive friends, like Natasha, that have been an instrumental presence, not just by creatively taking images that tell our story and who we are, but by being a friend over the last few years. I wanted to try to pay that gratitude forward for both the fresh perspectives that she has given and the multitude of images of our cakes that she has forever preserved in memory through photographs for us over the years. I think it is important to be there for someone, and do all that is in your power to make them happy on one of their most special days. All of the images that are not cake images are by photographer, Hunter Leone of Three Nails Photography.