Let them eat cake!

So let me begin by saying that to me, the decor of the cake was never really 'critical' - needs to be pretty, MUST taste good, and can't look TOO amateur. BUT, after falling in love with Ann Wood's bird cake toppers... (see below), I decided that I had to step up my plans for our wedding cake. So after visiting WAY too many cake websites a friend forwarded me LovinSullivan's website - and there I found THE cake inspiration. It's classic, but with such a modern flair!

Now comes the tricky part... my venue is providing the cake. And while I'm sure our resort will be able to produce such a cake, I couldn't leave the flowers up to chance. So began my search for these cool looking gardenia flowers. I first found what I was looking for here. Estilo Wedding's gardenia clay flowers are fantastic... but a TAD on the pricy side. (yikes!) The interesting part about the flowers is that they are made out of this material - CLAYCRAFT by Deco. It's super light, but is perfect for crafting flowers you wont' believe how realistic and delicate they look!

And THEN it hit me... HELLO (!?!?!)... why not check out my favorite 'go to' website... ETSY. And that's where vision and reality came together. The vendor I choose was Cherrie of CCbycherrie. Cherrie uses the SAME clay material (Claycraft by Deco) and is definitely an artist (she even teaches classes in Claycraft!). She was a pleasure to work with and made amazing flowers which were exactly what I was looking for, but $40 cheaper! The photo doesn't really do them justice... they are pretty fantastic.

Anyone looking for a fun way to jazz up their cake - you've got to check out these Claycraft flowers. Not only are they realistic looking, but you can KEEP the flowers as a keepsake afterwards!)

Another idea... why not purchase a single flower and use it as a hair piece? LOOKS real, but won't be dead and limp two hours after the wedding!

Have any other cake accessory ideas...??