Let me start this question with the caveat that it is probably a stupid question....I have offered to do the cupcakes for a friends's daughter's wedding and am now (perhaps belatedly!!) thinking about what sort of issues there might be...I'm comfortable with the logistics of the number required (150ish) and the timeline for baking and decorating but what has got me pondering is this - she wants 3 different cupcake flavours - vanilla, coffee & walnut and choc - how is the contrast of buttercream colours going to look on display?  The wedding cupcake pics I've seen on line all tend to be the same colour - or at most, 2 colours.  I had thought of doing a yellow buttercream on the vanilla cakes as she is having yellow roses in her bouquet, but am now thinking that a coffee buttercream and a choc one in addition to the yellow one isn't going to look that attractive on display.  I'm wondering whether I should suggest she only goes for 2 cupcake/buttercream flavours at the most.  I dont like the idea of doing the same buttercream on all 3 flavoured cupcakes but is that what I should do? 

Grateful for suggestions.........  Thanks, Helen

What did your friend's daughter say re the colours? 

Personally I'd keep it within the colours of her wedding/ bouquet. So maybe white and yellow. You could do a lemon bc on the vanilla cupcakes, white chocolate on the coffee ones and vanilla or coconut on the chocolate cupcakes. 

I would also keep the piping simple/elegant maybe rose swirls or similar on all of them to unify the look.

what julia said is all true -- another way to incorporate the chocolate iced ones is to border the other cakes in brown colored icing and some with a brown colored flower -- then if you put up cards describing each flavor be sure to denote some of the brown icing is not chocolate --

I'm not saying this is the best way to go but it's another way to go if choco icing is involved -- and another idea is to just display the chocos after pictures are taken--

you could also border the chocos in white or ice them all smooth then pipe a big loopy contrasting flower on each one so the color underneath shows through

*contrasting color flower

brown on white white on brown or yellow or whatever

brown eyed susans and daisies would be pretty toppers

great - thanks guys - would i use a coconut essence to get coconut buttercream?  I am still quite new to trying different flavoured ones - everything so far has tended to be either vanilla or chocolate using cocoa.

i've never used coconut essence -- i think i have used coconut flavoring but whenever we did coconut buttercream we just squished coconut onto it --

let me know how you like it if you try it

I use coconut milk for ambc and coconut essence for smbc. In your case it's not advisable to use (roasted) coconut flakes because they show and are only pipable with big tips to avoid blockage.

Thank you both - I am seeing the bride on 20th Aug to discuss her requirements etc but had been thinking that based on what she had said she wanted, the normal way I would decorate them wouldn't be aesthetically pleasing!!

julia you are correct as always -- for the record -- the coconut was fresh and the cake just looked all wooley with coconut like a big sheep -- not piped out --

which of course that doesn't work for a wedding either

(so why did you write it? she's doing a wedding duh-uh )

(i don't know)