No joke, that is probably one of the best "first wedding cakes" I've ever seen posted on here. As I was reading your post about all the flaws, I really was imagining the worst.

You, my friend? Need to give yourself hella more credit. My 1st wedding cake didn't look 1/2 that good. I didn't see any of the flaws as you've described! Yeah, sometimes things don't work out totally as planned, but you completely recovered and delivered a wonderfully executed cake. And yes, YOU know it was supposed to look a little different, but I guarantee nobody else did!

So, everyone say it with me.... GOOD JOB!!!!

Aha! See I told you everything would take longer than you planned!
But I think your cake looks lovely. Sure there are some issues, but not major ones and all in all I think you did a wonderful job. And see how much you learned!
Your roses are beautiful and your stenciling solution was great!
Good job!

Thank you very much FromScratch and carmijok for the very nice compliments. Yes carmijok, you are right about the timing. But you wouldn't even believe how well things were going and how "on schedule" I was until the stencilling nightmare. And I really did allow myself plenty of time.

Another thing that threw me a little off schedule...Both of my daughters were in the wedding. One was the Maid of Honor and the other a Bride's Maid. My granddaughter was the flower girl and my grandson was the guest book attendant. Well, my daughter was so busy helping the bride, I had to take my grandson to buy shoes (he couldn't find his only pair of dress shoes)...then I had to hem his slacks...Ya know, mom/grandma type stuff? Even though I warned everyone that I would NOT be helping with anything the day of the wedding. Ha, I'm a pushover!