We may be having cupcakes at our wedding, but I will not have a giant tower of cupcakes. No, just can’t do it. Adorable, sure, but seven tiers of cupcakes doesn’t do it for me.

So thus began the quest for cake stands. Ninety cupcakes (or more) takes up a lot of real estate. One I’m borrowing from Granny. Another I had picked out on Amazon until it was discontinued, but then I rediscovered it on eBay and bought two sets — one in pink glass, another in clear. They’re similar to this, but there are three tiers and no dome.

I had a heck of a time getting photos of my cake stands… I need to try again with Josh’s SLR. But antiquing yielded the four beauties in the front row of this photo. The little light blue one is too small to be useful (will even half a dozen cupcakes fit on there?), but it is absolute perfection and I had to have it.

And the grand finale: Clara French! One like this, but in blue. Talk about perfection. If love were a cake stand, this would be this one. Micaela’s shop is based in Seattle but ships all over the US.

The cupcakes themselves are coming from the fabulous Allison at Cupcake Mama. We had a cupcake tasting back in the spring when we first started looking at venues, and after the first bite, I was asking where to sign. The frostings really sold me; light and fluffy, not too sugary. And she makes banana cupcakes. Does it get any better than that? I’m hoping that the calligrapher will make flags for each of the flavors: vairhona chocolate cake with vanilla frosting; chocolate with white chocolate frosting; vanilla pound cake with vanilla frosting; vanilla with white chocolate frosting; and banana with vanilla frosting.

Allison is also making a small cutting cake for us, either two or three tiers. But what’s a cutting cake without a cake topper? Let’s be honest, if there weren’t cake toppers in this world, I probably wouldn’t want a cutting cake at all. It’s no secret that I’m a huge Ann Wood fan…

Ann is so insanely busy that I never thought she’d be able to make our cake topper birds. (Aside: She did email me about a month ago to notify me that she was starting on items for April weddings.) My mom is super crafty, so I knew she could easily reverse-engineer a pattern from some photographs and then add some one-of-a-kind flare. With a little help from Peonies & Polaroids, she did exactly that. If you ask me, her little trial bird is pretty amazing for a first run.

(She asks that you excuse the pin in the eye… Brutal, but hey, it’s all in the name of the final product.)

Among all the glass bottles and cake plates, I’ve picked up a few other antiques along the way — a plate here and there, a creamer and sugar, a couple of Fire King sapphire bowls, some little vintage metal trays. But my best find, by far, was this serving set.

Do you see that tag? $4.50. I doubt I could have even found a jewel-cut plastic-handled cake server at Michael’s for that. The server has a serrated edge, so I don’t even need a separate knife. That’s what I call efficient. And you can’t see it in this photo, but the tongs on the right have a scissor-like handle. Not sure if I could actually serve anything with it, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.

Actually, it’s part more-than-three, because I’ve been to Pacific Coast Antiques in Brookings a couple of times for a bottle here and a bottle there. But this was installment three of the Quest for Bottles and Cake Stands.

Since I was driving down to Brookings for Thanksgiving, I thought I might as well stop in and check out the world-famous antiquing in Lincoln City. Well, if you are looking to make a single purchase — and spend a pretty penny for it — then Lincoln City is the place to go. At my first stop, I found quite a few beautiful milk bottles in perfect condition, and many of them were quite special, but most were $60+. Several were $75, and I didn’t see a single one below $30. I’m buying so many of these, I can’t justify even one bottle at $30. On to the next shop, which was a complete bust. One nice cake stand, but at $70, I couldn’t bring myself to buy it.

Last, I went to Granny’s Attic and found a few more reasonably-priced bottles. I was a little discouraged and antiqued-out at that point, so I skipped the rest of the stores and hoped for better luck in Brookings.

That photo has nothing to do with anything wedding-related… I took it from the beach in Brookings one evening this week. This is why the Oregon Coast is my happy place.

I found a couple of nice cake plates in Brookings, including one that was a steal at $9. Surely it isn’t an antique, but you can’t beat $9 for any glass cake stand, regardless of age. But still no milk bottles, no vintage wine carafes, no other nondescript bottles that I just had to have.

Yesterday, we went down to Crescent City to explore the antique shops there — and I was shocked to discover that there are tons of them! Nine in all, including one I went to a few months ago. And lo and behold, bottles!

First, the non-wedding items: The book is a first edition of a book I loved as a child, published in the 1800s. The little trivet is just for fun… We know I have a trivet obsession, and this one was only $2.

The little sugar bowl was just such a great find I couldn’t pass it up… I will probably see if the caterer will use it for sugar for coffee at the reception. The pink depression glass cake plate and the clear cake plate at the very back are the ones I found in Brookings. The little blue saucer at the front was all by himself so I had to have him. Not sure yet what role he’ll play at the wedding.

A couple of the bottles are from Granny’s Attic in Lincoln City, and the rest are from shops in Crescent City. The large bottle on the far right was a real splurge — I must’ve had a momentary seizure when I decided to spend $20 on a single bottle, but it’s in perfect condition and is very special.

And my HUGE splurge was the little light blue cake plate at the left. You can’t see him very well in this photo, but he’s so so so pretty — the perfect blue, in flawless condition, and blue milk glass, which is very hard to find.

I’ve been sitting with my summer 2008 Martha Stewart Weddings for a couple of weeks, and there really are some fabulous finds in there. I must admit I was slightly irritated that one article is talking about being a bride on a budget (aside: anyone else notice the expanded DIY section?) and a few pages later, they’re talking about giving iPods as attendant gifts. (I love my girls, but how does $1,500 for gifts fit into a smaller budget?) But once I got past that, I found some fun music suggestions and downloadable templates. Oh, and the cuff links… Definitely one of the highlights, great variety.

Beautiful cake stands from Clara French Ceramiques. Perfect!

I found the crafty girl who made the cake toppers for the wedding I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, it sounds like she’s pretty booked up, which gets me wondering if I could DIY something vaguely similar…