This cake was one of those rare occasions where the couple gave me free rein in the creation of the design. Details on the cake were inspired from the brides dress which had incredible bead work and the most amazing train. The separator that is underneath the top tier is actually a diamond candle holder. This was wonderful with some strategically placed LED lights, the diamonds came alive and sparkled. I used heart shaped cakes for the base to recreate the dramatic train from the brides wedding gown. In my first attempt to capture the elegant flow of the train I positioned the main pleat to the side as it was on the dress. It totally threw the flow and balance of the cake off. After a brief melt down I tore it all off and started with two pleats placed centrally on the cake, which was a big improvement. The cake was once again balanced with the proper focal points, but the flow was still thrown off by my haphazard pleats. Another melt down. Then began the arduous task of making the left and right side of the pleats match in order to prevent one side drawing the attention more than the other. Thirteen hours later I finally was happy with the lines of the cake's design. Another lesson learned! The beading was applied to appliques, and consisted of different sizes and shapes of diamonds and pearls, which were then accented with piping painted silver and silver sugar to fill in the small spaces in between. I made the mistake of doing this on one long piece of fondant, which was disastrous when I went to apply it to the cake. It broke into pieces and things were popping off all over the place. After a lot of patching it was presentable, but I had lost the very clean precise pattern I had originally created. Another lesson learned!