Last weekend my husband and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary by renewing our vows in an intimate ceremony with about 70 or so of our friends and family. I’ll be posting lots of details and pictures over the next week or so – but I wanted to start by sharing our dessert table with you.

We decided early on that we wanted to have a dessert table rather then a wedding cake. My sister, who is a talented baker, agreed to help out. We choose black forest cakes (my husband’s favorites) and chocolate raspberry cupcakes (my favorite).

If you’re looking for an affordable alternative – a simpler cake style like the ones my sister did for us is something you can do and it still looks amazing! The cakes were iced in whipping cream icing with dolops of icing along the top rim for effect. The little chocolate hearts were made by piping melted chocolate onto wax paper. Once the chocolate hearts were hardened, they were placed on the cake with cherries for a gorgeous finish.  I think these cakes would also have made fantastic centerpeices if you placed them on pretty little cake stands at the center of each table. Gorgeous – and practice since it saves you the cost of centerpeices.

We also added a few jars with our favorite candies – Jelly Bellys, Chocolate Covered Pretzels and mints for after dinner.

For those of you considering doing your own wedding cake, take a look at this gorgeous damask wedding cake stencil from Designer Stencils! You can purchase stencils for each layer individually if you want a smaller cake or want to mix and match your favorites. You can also get the entire 5 layer set together.

They also have a great selection of other culinary stencils available.

A year and a half ago, my brother-in-law asked his girlfriend to be his wife: and I began a mission to learn how to make a wedding cake. It was a wonderful experience. I took a local cake decorating course to learn how to work with fondant, and then proceeded to use my new-found skills to produce a half decent, three tiered white wedding cake with silk flower accents.

So can you do it yourself? Is it possible to make your own wedding cake? Well, yes it is but it takes some time and commitment. And of course, a simpler design is a smarter project for a first time cake maker. If you are considering making your own cake, or making a cake for a friend or loved ones wedding – here are some great books on the market with recipes and instructions for basic, beautiful wedding cakes for beginners.