Just wandering what the majority thinks on wheter or not it's a good idea. I want to make it... A) Because she wants me to B) Because I know I can C) I will save myself some money...(since my husband and I will be paying for the wedding. However, I'm sure the wedding itself will be stressful enough for me without having the pressure of making the cake. Thoughts?? Have any of you done this and would you do it again if you had it to do over. It's not until next September but I want to make a decision soon.

I made my daughters wedding cake. It was the first wedding cake I ever made. It served 125 people. I would just take into consideration how big a cake it is. You have to manage your time well. Just remember you'll have things going on up to the day, such as a rehearsal dinner and such. It did get a little stressful. I think the hardest part is getting the cake done, then getting yourself ready the day of, delivering the cake and then getting to the church. As a mother you want the wedding to be perfect and that includes the cake so like I said it does get a little stressful

The answer is a resounding NO! My daughter got married in December last year and we had planned this big, perfect cake...six tiers. I was so busy that I didn't get anything done beforehand except actually baking the layers. She got married Saturday evening and I was up at 5 am Saturday morning decorating (poorly decorating I might add) a three tier cake that looked nothing like our plan. There is just too much for you to do to be trying to do something else as stressful as making your daughter's wedding cake. My daughter, though I can make beautiful wedding cakes, would have had a much nicer cake and a less stressed mother, if I had let someone else take over. I didn't even have time to do my hair and makeup like I needed to before the wedding because I spent so much time decorating. I would NEVER want to do that again...It was a nightmare!

My mom did my cake. It made the cake all that much more special. Can't speak for you or your daughter, but if you have it well planned out, and do all the prep work you can ahead of time, it could be a great experience!

I have the same dilemma, but I'm the mother of the groom so I'm thinking it won't be quite as hectic for me as it would be for the mother of the bride.

I don't know where you live cakeglitz, but you need to make sure that the catering hall will allow you to even bring a cake in.

The question I have is how do you handle stress?? If you work better under pressure and you really want to do it then go for it. I would make a couple back up plans for more simple versions of the wanted cake just in case. But, if you crack under pressure and have all ready volunteered to decorate, pick up flowers, pick up dresses, pick up tux's, helping with any hair/makeup, etc, etc, etc then I wouldn't do it on a bet!

I just did my daughters wedding cake, she got married on July 18th. We did the entire wedding ourselves(food, flowers, cake, decorating, ect) My daughter is a very organized woman. That helped a lot! Some advice I can give you is plan a simple but elegant cake, allow yourself ample time, and above all ENJOY the experience!! I would do it again in a heartbeat!! I am attaching a pic of her cake!

ok so I can't post the pic here. Here is the link

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1747530

hope this works!

I, the bride, made my own cake. I will say that we had a reception on a different day then the wedding (destination wedding), so it was a little different. But....we had to do all the decor, set up, and getting ready for that. It was for about 175 people. It was difficult, but I had to stick to a schedule. While waiting for the cake to set up in the fridge I was making centerpieces, adn so on. It can be done, but like the previous poster said, it does depend on how you handle stress.

I made my own wedding cake and it was a massive undertaking. Honestly, I don't regret one stressed out exhausted moment of the entire process even though it took me a year to ever get back into decorating.

However, to reduce stress, I planned well, picked a cake I knew I could do in pieces, and used the entire day before the wedding to put it together (this is the day of my rehearsal dinner when my mom/aunt were decorating the church and the day after we all went up to do the flowers which took an entire day so I'd been pretty crazy busy).

My advice:
1. Delegate. If somebody else is decorating, then that relieves your stress there. If you can't delegate or feel guilty for missing something, then don't do the cake.
2. Bake the cakes and freeze 2 weeks in advance so 1 thing is out of the way.
3. If you are doing fondant, make 1 week in advance or best yet-preorder
4. Use SPS and preassemble the cake and make sure you have a fantastic helper to assist you with carrying the cake (aka, my dad was not)
5. Make your BC ahead of time as well.
6. Pick a design you know you can do. Don't overexert yourself.
7. Devote an entire day to assembling it and take the phone off the hook if you have to.
8. Make gumpaste flowers, pearls, etc. (if using), months in advance.

Do you know anyone who isn't involved with the wedding that could help? Maybe handle the delivery?

I made and decorated my daughters wedding cake last September (2009) along with a grooms cake the resembled a barn and silos - which I still don't have posted to CC yet so don't waste your time looking for them - HA! I will get caught up one of these days!

I made a 5 tier round wedding cake - 18, 15, 12, 9, 6 and the grooms cake was made from 3 half sheets and 9 - 6" round cakes.

I assembled and decorated the grooms cake on Wednesday; it was covered in fondant and I parked it in the fridge until Saturday morning. (It barely fit!).

I decorated the wedding cake on Thursday and left it setting out , covered in towels, until I set it up on Saturday morning.

Now - I made the cakes the week before and froze them; I made the buttercream the weekend prior to the wedding. All of the decorations on the wedding cake and the icing were buttercream.

The reception was at my sister's home - and I arrived at her house at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning and we set the wedding cake up on the cake table, covered it again with the towels. The grooms cake was on a roll around cart that was covered in a tablecloth and before the reception began the kitchen help rolled the cake out and around to the pool area, set it in place, locked in the cart with huge potted mums; then opened the double french doors to the wedding cake setting just inside the door already set up - removed the towels and it was ready to go.

I think was leaving her house at about 8:00 a.m. that morning - ready to spend the rest of the day with my daughter getting our hair done, pics made, etc.

I did leave my 'wedding cake repair kit' under the table - just in case something did go wrong - but everything was fine.

Would I have done it any differently? No!

Was it my best designed and decorated cake I have ever made? No! But my daughter and son-in-law loved them and that is all that matters!

Plan, plan, plan -- do your best to keep the wedding cake design simple and use real flowers if time gets too short. Good luck - you can do it!

Suze

I suggest doing the tiered cake out of dummies, this way you can decorate it months in advance if need be and you can take your time on it. Then a couple of weeks before the wedding bake up 12x18's and freeze. Then a day or two before just take them out, fill them, and do a layer of icing, no need to decorate (these are called kitchen cakes) then these are the ones that are served

If it's important to you to do it...keep it simple. Not so plain that the fondant has to be perfect but things that can be done well in advance so the day before the wedding the most you have to do is throw the fondant on and some gumpaste decorations. No hand pipping, no stenciling...things that if they go wrong...life just sucks. Pick a design that is within your skill set and do at least 1 practice tier about a month before to work out the kinks.

I really wanted my mom to spend the day with me. I would have been sad if she'd spent the day before and/or the day of my wedding in the kitchen..but that's just me.

I had only taken the Wilton courses at Michaels about a year before my daughter's wedding and she asked that I make her mini cakes for the wedding. I loved that she had that much confidence in me but also thought about the stress, etc. I still could not say no to my daughter and started planning how I would go about making 225 mini cakes. I am very grateful to my Wilton instructor as she gave me many tips and much advice on how to pull this off. The mini cakes were fondant covered with a small flower on top and ribbon around the bottom. I made the flowers (royal icing) about a month before the wedding and stored them in dark area so the colors (burgundy and yellow) didn't fade. A couple of weeks before the wedding I made the cakes, covered them in fondant, and froze them. The wedding was on Sunday and the venue wanted the cakes delivered on Saturday. Thursday night I took the cakes out of the freezer and Friday I set up an assembly line in my kitchen with a few relatives who attached the flowers and ribbons while I piped the leaves. One problem I ran into was when I checked the cakes Saturday morning a lot of the ribbons had popped open so I had to find a different adhesive and reattach them. That did take most of the day but we did deliver the cakes the night before the wedding. The only thing that didn't get done was last minute cleaning and I did get to spend my daughter's wedding day getting ready with her. I also had some bulging on some of the cakes (being the novice I still am) but all in all the cakes looked beautiful, my daughter was very happy, and yes, I would do it again.

I made our DD's wedding cake. In 11 years it was the cake I had the most things go wrong with. In the two days before the wedding + the wedding day itself, I have a total of 5 hours of sleep. And I had my assistant working for me then, and I had delivery help.

If you've got plenty of experience and can handle stress - and if you're legal, think about it a lot. The legal bit is that you don't want the venue to refuse to accept your cake after you've worked on it for several days and you don't want a guest's (if something goes wrong)insurance company suing you over your DD's cake. That wouldn't be a good memory.

PS I did centerpiece cakes which I ultimately think are easier. No onsite assembly. Just plop them on the tables. DD had a four tier display cake, three fake tiers and the top tier to cut. That was mostly done in advance.

cakeglitz, I haven't yet read all the responses but here's my 2 cents...I took up cake decorating so I could make my daughter's wedding cake. I took my first Wilton class in November and by the time her wedding came around in June I had taken all 4 courses plus an additional course in gumpaste flowers that my instructor offered. It wasn't that stressful and I'm really happy I did it. I had the gumpaste lilies made several weeks in advance. We kept the design simple; 4 tiers, white fondant, a different ribbon around each tier and the lilies. The wedding was on a Friday evening; I baked Wednesday; trimmed, filled, crumbcoated and prepped for stacking on Thursday; covered with fondant on Friday morning and assembled on site.

I know I could make a better and more elaborate cake now but it remains one of the cakes I'm proudest of. It was straight, level, smooth...very few people at the wedding had ever seen gumpaste flowers; my DH was so proud that whenever anyone went near the cake he excused himself from what he was doing to go and "tell them about Linda's flowers". My daughter loved her cake and Ron Ben Israel himself could make a wedding cake and she will firmly maintain that hers was better.

Sorry this is so long...bottom line is that this was a very positive experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

I made my own wedding cake that served nearly 1200 people. Is was no problem getting it done in time, however, delivery is something that needs to be considered when trying to fit into your busy schedule. Our hall allowed us to deliver it the night before the reception, and although we didnt anticipate any problems during the transport, I was prepared to fix anything that went wrong. Well, the 24 base tier had some minor damage, but they were ready to lock up and close for the night (which was understandable), so I had to return in the morning to do the repairs. It was an inconvenience that I didnt need, but easily doable. If I had to do it again, I would, but Id seriously consider using dummy cakes to eliminate the extra stress factor!

If youre worried about your timeline, I personally think you cant go wrong considering dummies for a portion of it. Good luck in whatever decision you choose.

I'm already wondering about this and my daughter is only 8! I have a few cake friends around who are wonderful. Chances are I'd enlist their help, bake and freeze beforehand, pay them to help with torting and stacking, etc, all pre done gumpaste work, and final assembly and finish. I think that is sort of my plan when the time comes.

I made both of my son's wedding and grooms cakes. The first one I did, I also did their reception. Not a sit down dinner but a lite buffet. We were able to go to the chapel the day before but the day of they would only let us in 1 and1/2 hours before the wedding. That took a lot of work to get everything ready before I had to get dressed. The other son got married on April 25. I was able to go to the reception hall the day before and assemble the cake and put in fridge. The day of the wedding everything was ready except placing a few gumpaste flowers and the topper. I didn't cater that one. Both were small weddings and pretty simple cakes. I enjoyed doing them. My daughter got married at court house and refused to have any later reception.

I agree with everyone that it can be done if you plan ahead and do as much as possible before the actual day. I was a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding, and also made four cakes with four different pink berry tinted frostings, to mach the different pinks of the bridesmaids dresses.

Way in advance I made all the flowers and put them aside.

The weekend before I baked all the cakes and froze them (they had to be transported to a resort in upstate NY (I am located in Brooklyn NYC)).

The day before I left for upstate I made all the buttercreams and refrigerated them.

The day before the actual wedding I torted, filled, crumb coated, frosted and stacked all the cakes.

The morning of I woke up early, delivered the cakes to the location, added the sugar flowers, and then went to hair and makeup.

Was it exhausting? Yes, definitely. Was it worth it? Yes! It took a lot of planning but the cakes were a hit, and it was so special to be able to contribute to my friend's wedding in that way.

Good luck! BUT...if you feel like you will be missing out on too much (I missed the wedding rehearsal and other random things) then don't feel bad about hiring someone to make the cake. If you really feel like this will add a level of stress and will take you away from tending to your daughter then she will understand, I'm sure. She wants you to have fun too!