I am doing my friend's wedding cake. She supplied the topper. She also supplied the ribbon that is to wrap the bottom of each tier. The wedding theme is dusty blue and champagne.

The ribbon she found is royal blue with and sky blue swirls and the topper is glass with pink doves and pink roses on it.

To add to this mish-mash she also informed me the florist is adding purple tulips to the bouquets, along with white daisies and some other little white flowers.

I want this to look like a really classy polished cake and I am afraid it is going to end up more along the line of "cake disasters" here because we are pulling in too many colors. I'm feeling the pressure b/c there will be many guests at this wedding who know I made the cake, and I am hoping to generate some business here. Do I tell her to pick another ribbon, go out and find my own that will work better, or suck it up and work with what she picked? I've already started some dusty blue roses and now they look terrible with this ribbon.

Suggestions please!

YIKES!! A friend huh?? OK,,so to not hurt any feelings on her end,,I would suggest to offer YOUR suggestions for a better look...Just tell her that you like her ideas indeed, but you thought it would look nicer if you change it up a tad on details,,due to the reasoning of you doing cakes all of the time and you picturing as honestly, too many colors, but it will look really elegant like she would want..Ask her if you could put your suggestions in and tell her EXACTLY what your thoughts are, if you want to change it up some, and make sure you also state that you will do whatever she wants, but just wanted to help with the coloring as you are accustomed to doing cakes all of the time, and you know what would look right or not. To me, with this explanation, you are stating that she has great ideas and all, yet at the same time, you are putting your ideas in for her to choose from..so this, in turn, would ease both of you without any hard feelings! AND make sure you do NOT say any words like " I don't like this or that" OR like "it's NOT going to look right" and etc..NO negativity! SHe will understand you fully once you state with all of the experiences you've had in past, with combination of colors and etc..She WILL understand if she is a TRUE friend to you..USE her ribbon and topper, but change up the style and take away a color or two.

Hope this helps! Good luck!
God bless
Jenscreativity

I think I would go run with the royal blue ribbon and the pink topper. Might be hard to imagine, but those colors actually go very well together.

If there is going to be a lot of colors going on elsewhere too, then you might want to go with just a plain cake with ribbon around the bottoms. Iced in champagne frosting/fondant, wrapped with the blue ribbon, pink topper and some of the white flowers from the bouquets.

Just remember this isn't the only cake that's getting topped with an ugly topper. Think of those ones that show the bride dragging the groom or with them making out or getting wasted. They're all tasteless in my opinion, but some people like them.

I'm sure you'll come up with a lovely cake!

I'd have her come over, stack up some cake dummies, wrap the blue ribbon on it, put the topper on...."hmmmm...what do you think? I'm worried it will be too busy? Cakes always seem to look much more elegant with one color scheme. Maybe we should just go with pink ribbon?" Maybe you could find a pink ribbon with a hint of royal blue?

I did a wedding for this really great bride who's colors were black/white/tiffany blue/ lime/hot pink....for her old fashion wedding! I have to give her credit the wedding was so lovely, she pulled it off very well, but we decided the cake would be black and off white, and it worked in great with the rest of the color scheme. She's now a wedding consultant, she'll be a good one too.

With the colors going on I'd stick to a plain white cake. Use the ribbon and the topper and then embellish with the white daisies and not many of those. Obviously the Bride doesn't think the topper or the ribbon is ugly, she loves them or wouldn't want them on the cake so you should use them. Because they are such busy design elements you need to make sure that what you do with the cake compliments them and unfortunately that means there's not much you can do with it that wouldn't make it look even more busy. Kinda like a plain wedding dress with ornate jewelry or an ornate wedding dress with simple jewelry...don't have the cake compete with the rest..it'll just end up looking like a busy hot mess and you will get blamed for it. Don't allow the florist to add more color to this cake..the blue of the ribbon and the pink of the topper is more than enough. In this case allow simple to equal classic for you.

Cat

Think of this as a challenge and a chance to grow. I think "Spring" bouquets of gumpaste flowers going up the side of the cake would work with this color scheme. Be sure and make the roses the same color as the ones on the topper. If you have enough ribbon and it's the right size, you could always wrap the bouquets with it and make bows with a tail.

Remember, navy is a neutral so techinally you can pair anything with it. This means the real colors you are dealing with are pink, purple, and dusky blue. Just keep your tones either warm or cool, which depends on the topper roses.

Good luck and post pictures!