Life-long Trekkie Sonnie Fustavsson, 29, and convert Jossie Sockertopp, 23, travelled all the way from Sweden to London’s ExCel centre to get hitched in the first wedding of its kind.
The pair wore traditional Klingon attire with prosthetic foreheads at the Destination Star Trek London event, inspired by an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Klingon Worf ties the knot with science officer Jadzia Dax. They exchanged vows and swore to unite against all opponents before cutting the Borg cube cake.
We chatted to Cake Designer Charlotte White of Restoration Cake to find out more…
How did the opportunity to create the cake for the UK’s first Klingon wedding come about, and what was your reaction like upon hearing about it?
I was approached by the wedding co-ordinator, who had found me via my website. The whole ethos of Restoration Cake is about giving my couples exactly what they want on their wedding day but, in my day to day orders, this tends to extend to matching a lace pattern on the Bride’s wedding dress or matching the colour of her bouquet. I was so excited when I received the call and was entirely up for the challenge!
What kind of work was involved?
The first thing I did was a google image search for the Borg Cube! Being a sci-fi fan myself, I know how seriously the fans take the little details. For the purpose of display at the show, the cubes that I used for the cake were polystyrene dummies – these are covered in icing and decorated in exactly the same way as real cake but can be left out on display for days without any deterioration. The bottom tier was a 12″ cube, the middle was 8″, and the top was 4″. I hollowed out a section of the bottom tier and inserted green LED lights!
Each cube was covered with a panel of fondant icing, which was then airbrushed with shades of black and green to give it a slight glow. Smaller panels of grey fondant icing, to resemble circuit boards were added to each cube and then the pipes were hand-piped. The bottom tier alone took 7 hours of hand-piping to complete! The cubes were then airbrushed again with a silver lustre to add a metallic sheen.
In addition to these three cubes, I also made another 8″ middle tier out of real cake to be cut and eaten by the couple and their guests. The cake was made of six layers of red velvet cake with cream cheese filling. It was rather tasty and went very quickly once the fans saw that it was being given out!
How did the project compare to other cakes you’ve created?
Bizarrely enough, the decoration of the Borg Cube Cake was not too far from my comfort zone! It is not uncommon for wedding cakes to feature a hand-piped pinstripe motif, which is essentially what I was doing with this cake. I have certainly never created a cake of this size before. It was huge!
What was the Big Day like?
I was lucky enough to attend the Klingon ceremony. It was really quite romantic! The service was read in both Klingon and English so that we could understand what was being said. The words were all about two hearts finding each other… I’m a big softy really! I had heard that the Klingon couple normally dual with swords during the ceremony but I was grateful that this was left out as I was a bit worried that the cake might get knocked over!
What was the couple’s reaction to the cake?
The couple were thrilled. I think that this had exceeded their expectations! When they had mentioned a Borg Cube, I think they imagined that they would get that one cube cake. What they didn’t expect was my flair for the dramatic! The Bride also really enjoyed her slice of cake.
What’s next for you? A Comic Con wedding?!
I am looking forward to the next couple who will challenge my cake decorating skills in this way! I have a reputation as a vintage loving girl but what few people know is that I have a film degree and wrote my dissertation on Super Hero Movies… so a Comic Con wedding would be my idea of heaven! I always thought that Selena Kyle should have married Bruce Wayne. Batman wedding, anyone?
