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.)

All of a sudden cupcakes are sounding like a mighty fine wedding cake alternative. I’ve always wanted to do individual cakes, but cupcakes may be a less expensive, more practical option.