Amy Atlas Wannabe

Last week my friend Jo got married. The wedding venue was a spectacular farm, complete with gorgeous barns, rolling hills, and a peaceful lake. Jo hired a super talented florist and one of the best local caterers in town. Heather (Sweet Heather Anne) and I were lucky enough to be asked to do an Amy Atlas-esque dessert table for the reception. Jo was such a laid back bride and gave everyone a lot of creative freedom to work within her vision. Her theme was a series of playful vignettes, packed with the charm and vintage worthy of a photo spread in Once Wed. Here's a peek at her penny candy table. See what I mean? Adorable!

And this is how the dessert table turned out. To pull the look together, Heather and I used various cake stands, jadeite platters, metal canisters, and a lovely floral tablecloth from Jo's collection of vintage treasures.

Heather made the cakes, three total and each a different flavor; I made the pastries; and together, we made 8 dozen painted sugar cookies!

The cake design was inspired by Jo's wedding attire, a striking teal mermaid gown with ruching from bodice to floor and a peacock feather hair piece.

The cake flavors were a ginger sour cream cake layered with apricot-ginger jam and topped with a vanilla buttercream, a caramel cake with praline crunch buttercream, and a rich chocolate cake with mexican-spiced chocolate ganache.

In addition to cake and cookies, beautifully rustic apple and raspberry pies made by Helen and Blake of EAT catering also had prominence on the table.

The pastries included chocolate dulce de leche bars, mexican wedding cookies, and brown butter spoon cookies sandwiched with either my homemade raspberry or apricot jams.

A small detail of which I'm most proud for the display is the signage. I was stumped by how to prop up the labels and disenchanted with the numerous cheesy place card holders available for purchase.

Then DIY inspiration hit. When looking through Jo's vintage tableware collection, I saw these: rusty mattress springs with alligator clips welded to the tips meant to be used to display the table numbers.

I made a miniature version by twisting 18-gauge copper wire into the necessary shape. Then, to eliminate the shiny, new-penny look, soaked the wires in a "tarnishing" solution borrowed from a jewelry-making friend to give the perfect brown/black patina.

Making this table (every step from concept to execution) was so much fun! A perfect use of my interests and talents. It would be a dream to quit my day job and instead do this full time. Watch out Amy Atlas, one day I may just get the courage to take the leap...