Wedding craft project: An update

Today is 9 days until I get married, so time for an update on project 'craft your own wedding'!

Progress so far:

1. Cake
Baked and regularly dowsed with brandy. Last night I covered the 2 layers with marzipan.
Good things:
#1 The crumbs I had tasted good.
#2 A friend of my Mum's has offered to decorate it. She's an artist so I have high hopes of a very pretty result.
Possible worries:
#1 The cakes a quite stumpy - about half as tall as most wedding cakes. Hopefully that's fine and everyone will be happy with having a higher ratio of icing to fruit cake!
#2 I forgot to brush the cake tiers with apricot jam before covering with marzipan. Hopefully that's not a completely crucial step.
To do:
Ice with white icing in a couple of days time and deliver to my mum for decorating by her friend.

2. Bouquet
Brooches collected, ribbon flowers made, all attached to wire stems and gathered together. I've made a fabric and tulle yoke made to sit round the top.

To do:
Bind the stems with ribbon.

3. Bridesmaid dresses
One completed, one needs the hem finishing off. This is the completed one:

To do: give both dresses a good press, finish the hem of the other dress.

4. My dress
Silk cut out and sewn, lining attached, zip inserted. Buttons bought, covered with silk and sewn on.

To do:
Sew on loops to close the top of the bodice, hem the lining of the skirt, hem the outer layer of the skirt, inserting horsehair braid to give it some body.

5. Bunting
Not started yet. Oops! To be honest though, it wouldn't matter terribly if this didn't get made in time as we have quite a few other decorations: pretty lanterns and strings of lights etc.

I'm pretty sure that this is all do-able in 9 days, with a full time job to juggle and various other organisational tasks for the wedding. It should be possible I think. I have a schedule, so as long as I don't slack off it should be all good.

I'm enjoying feeling crafty. My employer might not be enjoying the fact that I'm consistently 10 minutes late to work at the moment!

the wedding craft project

I'm getting married 4 weeks today, and because I do like a project its a very DIY wedding. Is it wrong to turn your own wedding into a craft project? I'm quite liking having lots of crafts to do, but now the deadlines are drawing close so the pressure's on!

Here's my to do list. I'll post an update nearer the day to let you know if I managed to finish everything in time.

Make my wedding dress
Progress so far: Practice version made in calico, practice bodice made in fabric similar to the real thing, real fabric chosen, bought and cut out. Started sewing the bodice.


Make bridesmaids dresses
Progress so far: Nearly done! Just need to hand sew the waist bands and hem the dresses.

Make wedding cake
Progress so far: 2 fruit cakes baked. Currently being dowsed in brandy at regular intervals so that they are suitable boozy by 2nd June. Will need to ice them a couple of days before the wedding and make a sponge or carrot cake for the final layer.


Make bouquet from vintage brooches
Progress so far: brooches collected, wire and tape bought to turn them into a bouquet.


Make bunting to decorate the garden for the party
Progress so far: None, but I have loads of fabric scraps so I' m sure it will be quick to do.

Its a fair amount to complete in 4 weeks, but hopefully I'll do it.

Birthday Cake

I am a bad girlfriend. It is Dan's birthday today. I forgot about it entirely until saturday, and then it was because my Mum mentioned it that I remembered. Not that Dan minds in the slightest, but I feel guilty.

Cue urgent ordering of a present (which hasn't arrived yet - oops), and slightly frantic wednesday evening efforts on the cake-baking front.

So here's Dan's birthday cake:

Its called a Passion Cake. Not sure why, but its essentially a banana and carrot cake with walnuts (I know that sounds a bit wrong but you can't taste the carrots so its just a moist banana loaf). I sandwiched it together with cream-cheese icing and sprinkled a few walnuts on the top. The walnuts looked lovely - they were foraged late last year in the woods near where we live and have been drying out in a bowl in our living room. It was good to find a suitable occasion to use them.

I won't get to taste-test this one as Dan has taken it to share out at work, but hopefully I'll get feedback. With any luck I managed to cut off all the singed bit on the top caused by the wierd hot-spot in our oven!

UPDATE: Dan said he was the most popular man in the office yesterday, all the cake went in about 2 minutes, and there was much disappointment from those that were too slow to get a piece.