Idunno about you, but I need a visual.

I don't know if you noticed, but I failed to mention what I want the cake to look like in my last cake post. The cake design is just as important to me as the contents, and I knew I'd need a visual aide to explain my vision to the baker. So I threw this together in PowerPoint:

click to enlarge
Basically, its my two favorite cake inspiration pics, and an explanation of which aspects of the inspiration cakes that I'd like our cake to have. I also included a small picture of our cake topper so that the baker could see it without me having to tote it around. Here's a larger one.

I made the cake topper using some wooden letters from Michaels, a thin wooden dowel (divided into 3 pieces), metallic green acrylic paint and a little bit of high gloss sealant.

Making these was a really simple project. First, I sanded and painted the letters, then I used hot glue to attach the dowels, and finally I spray painted the letters with the high gloss sealant. The whole project took me less than a couple of hours, and only cost me about $6. I think they're going to be really cute on the cake, and are very similar to the topper from one of our cake inspiration pics.

I was able to leave a copy of our cake planning sheet with Lorene and I'll have a copy in my wedding planner. I'm thinking about updating it to include the cake dimensions and flavors (may as well be thorough, right?). I highly recommend pulling together a comprehensive visual aide when you go speak with your vendors. If you don't know what you like, that's one thing. But when you know what you want, I think it helps your vendor if you can connect the dots between your inspiration pictures so they'll have the vision too...in your own words.

♥