Hi fellow bakers-I am unfortunately about to lay out a sob story...sorry for that...here is my situation...I have owned my own bakery for 7 years and have loved it! Unfortunately last August I began having health issues that ended up being due to a brain tumor. On February 3 I underwent a 12 hour brain surgery to remove the tumor. I am recovering but due to the surgery i am completely deaf in my right ear, have facial paralysis on the right side and severe nerve damage and partial paralysis in my right arm and hand. I have one more surgery to go and a LOT more physical therapy and occupational therapy and radiation for the portion of tumor they have left behind....All of that said to say this, throughout ALL of this mess, my AMAZING boyfriend stood by me. He was at the hospital EVERYDAY (I was there for 2 weeks) when I got to come home he worked enough to keep up his bills (we are paycheck to paycheck folks ) and he was here at my house to take care of me and to take care of my amazing 7 year old son (i'm a single mother who raises my son completely without his fathers presence/input/assistance etc.) and do everything for Gabriel that i couldn't. Needless to say, this man is AMAZING!! I did not know men like him even existed!!! 3 weeks ago this wonderful, loving, breathtaking man asked me to marry him...I of course said YES!!!! We are getting married in November. Due to my recent medical bills, and upcoming medical bills and the fact that we now ONLY have my fiance's income which is barely adequate to support all we have on our plate, I am baking both the wedding cake and groom's cake...So Ive told you guys WAY WAY WAY too much of sob story to say this: I desperately need help coming up with the most AMAZING groom cake idea EVER for the biggest blessing that has ever come into me and my son, Gabriels life!!! My fiancé is an amazing guitarist (but I dont want to do just a guitar cake,) he loves antique tube amplifiers, loves the bands Wilco and The Black Keys, loves his I-POD, reading David Sedaris, and drinking snooty craft beers. Because he is so amazing to me and my sonand because I never thought it was possible to fall in love with my best friend, I want to make his cake super special and personalCan anybody help with some suggestions?? My design skills seem to have left my brain when they did the brain tumor surgery!!!

I once saw a cake that was for a female's birthday cake but you could do something like this for a man. It was a stacked cake (I find that 2 tier square is masculine) and around the edges of each layer were all the things the girl liked made out of fondant. There were things like, a TV, a camera, her ipod, etc...

I made a cake for my boyfriend's birthday last year and I just made a single tiered sheet cake (it was huge though because I put like 4 layers on it). I just covered it in fondant and then make a bunch of little fondant embelums to put all over it of things that represented him. You could make them 3-d but I just made each thing flat and painted them.

So, one thing I put on there was the Huston Astros logo. So I just traced a picture of the logo, cut it out of fondant, and then painted it the actual logo colors. It's simple and doesn't take a TON of energy to make. You can do it over a pretty long period of time. Then you just store all of them in a air-tight container.

Also, my bf and I lovvvve 4-wheelers and going mudding. Therefore, I did make a 3-d sculture of a 4-wheeler to put in the center. I did this because I knew it was something we both loved and it was important to me above all the other things. So....you could do something with music or anything you guys both share passion in and make it the centerpiece.

If you're good with stencils or even just plain piping, you can pick out a poem, quote, or even better, a song that both of you like and that may express your relationship and write the words around one tier in a pretty way. Kinda like Christopher Garren's cakes has done: http://christophergarrens.com/images/wedding/02.jpg or here: http://christophergarrens.com/images/wedding/22.jpg or here: http://christophergarrens.com/images/wedding/04.jpg