cupcake tower wedding "cake"....!

...so this was my first attempt at a cupcake tower for my aunt's wedding a couple of weeks ago....with a 6 inch 4 layer cake on top....

...roses piped on with a wilton #1M tip and then topped with large pearl non-pareils.....

.....the cupcakes are iced with vanilla buttercream tinted green, pink, or left plain white (make sure you use clear vanilla or you'll get off white buttercream)....some were also iced with chocolate fudge icing (store bought and mixed with about 2 cups of the vanilla buttercream).....all iced with the same wilton #1M tip.....

...for anyone who may need to make a ton of cupcakes (i made about 150), this was my plan of action....started baking batches (30-40ish) of cupcakes that monday (wedding was on saturday).....as soon as the cupcakes were cool, put them into large zip lock bags (get as much as the air out of the bag)....then immediately freeze....did this on tuesday, wednesday, and thursday too...on wednesday, thursday, and friday made the icings.....i batch for each color (this ended up being the perfect amount...1 batch iced about 35-40 cupcakes).....on friday defrosted all the cupcakes and then immediately iced and topped with the same pearl non-pareils as on the cake....

.....these had to be transported about 2 hours so the best "container" i found were those big costco cardboard boxes they give you to carry all the bulk items home....pack the cupcakes tight so there's not a lot of room to slide....i finished icing all the cupcakes on the friday before the wedding so covered the boxes with plastic wrap and stored in our cool basement area overnight....

....i used a cupcake tower to display them on and assembled everything once we got to the location....the cupcake tower is just sturdy white cardboard...the edges are not finished so i covered it in ribbon (secured with white pins).....pretend you don't see the ribbon coming off the edge in the pic below! oh and if you are going to re-use the cupcake tower just know that the cardboard may get some stains because of the cupcake liners or if any of the frosting gets on it too....(think it's fine tho because you just cover the stain up the next time with more cupcakes!)

...this was a lot of fun and for me it wasn't too stressful to make so many cuppies since i planned it pretty well and i wasn't up til 3 am frosting cupcakes (that said if i needed like 300 i may have been a lot more stressed!)....and most importantly....

CONGRATULATIONS SUSIE AND EBB!!!

thanks for letting me play a part on your special day!....(last photo by PB n' J Photography....they were AWESOME!)

tidy mom works for me wednesday