The Wedding Cake

I think time wise, this holds the record for getting a wedding cake ready from start to finish. Michelle gave me an idea of what she wanted, and I think this cake turned out better than her example (at least I hope she thought so).
Michelle and Josh were checking over the present Cheri and Craig sent with us from their family and decided they couldn't wait to open just one present before the wedding. Michelle was hoping for a Kitchen Aid mixer (red) and Josh was hoping it was a Wii. Michelle won and I was as thrilled as she was that she opened it because now I could use it to make the cake!! Thank you Cheri, and Craig!
Paul and I found a cake decorating store almost to the South Carolina border where we were able to get the supplies I needed. While I was starting the baking, Paul went to Lowes and got a sturdy board that he cut to size for holding the cake. I baked one of the 16" square bottom layers first and it fit nicely in Michelle's oven. My luck held when I was able to fit both the 12" middle layer and the the 8" top layer square pans together side by side in her oven next. (of course had to do this process twice to get all the layers doubled.) I found cooling boards and had the layers in Michelle's refrigerator until I put them together. This was a time I was greatful there wasn't much in the refrigerator. Since Josh loves "red velvet" cake, Michelle wanted the middle layers with that flavor and the bottom and top layers in a white vanilla. I made a cream cheese filling for the red velvet and a raspberry filling for the white vanilla layers. The main outside frosting was the delicious "whipped cream" - like base. That was delicious, but hard to keep even when I did the shells at the bottom of the layers, and reverse shells at the top of the layers as the church was warm and ideally cooler is better to keep things even.
Michelle ordered a beautiful "L" for the top and it looked great - nice and simple, but elegant. She wanted fresh fruit on the cake as well as a red ribbon-like color around the bottom of each layer. I colored fondant and rolled the ribbon so everything (except the top "L" decoration) on the cake was edible. Paul and Dave picked up the fruit at Harris Teater and it looked so good, Dave wanted to save some of it for smoothies. He did get his wish, there was enough left over, however there never was time to make him that smoothie.