the wedding cake.

There she is!

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you know that we were lucky enough to have a choice between two very delicious cake designers. The Plaza includes a wedding confection by either Sylvia Weinstock or Ron Ben Israel in their catering package. You can read about our tasting experiences with Sylvia here and with Ron here.

I wanted our cake and the designer to be a surprise because ... I like surprises. But, now that I have eaten my body weight in chocolate and almond cake and have that whole top tier sitting in my freezer, I do believe the time is nigh for a reveal.

We went with Ron.

I suppose if you're a confectionary junkie, you may have even known that from the photo above. [Editor's note: I am dying for more close up shots of the cake. Hopefully our professional photos will have some!]. We decided on RBI for a few reasons, which I'll outline in case anyone out there is debating between the two. Let me also say here that Sylvia's cakes really are beautiful and delicious; any guest would be lucky to eat her buttercream frosting.

But from the moment we walked into Ron's studio, we felt like William and Kate. Ron himself was there to walk us through the process, offer suggestions as to what designs made the most sense for us as a couple and generally be a source of warm hugs, big smiles and generous portions of free wedding cake. None of these things is bad.

Crucially, he was also willing to design a unique cake (any number of unique cakes, actually) within the budget allotted to him by The Plaza. Sylvia, on the other hand, will really only do variations on her basic theme of a tower cake with sugar flowers. This was the tipping point for us as I wanted something eye-catching and hopefully a cake that was a little out of the ordinary that people would remember.

A little bit closer!

Mike wanted a cake with a white base color, so we went for the tower style with a cascade of rainbow sugar flowers. You can't really tell in the photo, but the blooms faded to blue and purple near the base of the cake. They were unbelievably stunning in person and I almost couldn't believe they weren't real.

As for the flavors: we did alternating layers of chocolate and almond cakes. Each cake had its own unique frostings: cookies and cream, hazelnut crunch and nutella for chocolate while almond was paired with lemon curd, vanilla bean and salted caramel. I definitely made the waiter bring us extras of both. #bride

In a happy surprise, we even got to see Ron on the wedding day when he came to drop off the cake. Working with his team has been such a pleasure and it was the icing on the cake (OH NO SHE DIIIINT) to give him a hug just a few hours before we walked down the aisle.

The cake was set up in a Juliet balcony in the ballroom, which was, obviously, fitting. When it was time for the cutting, we got to address our loyal followers guests just like that somewhat famous couple of Cambridge.

So yeah, dreams do come true.