Cake Tasting

So, FI and I had our first cake tasting this Monday night, at Sweet Cakes in Lakeland, Fl. We tried the following cakes:

Classic Cake, which was butter cake with butterum icing

Amaretto Fudge Cake, which was chocolate fudge cake with ammaretto buttercream

and Spiced Rum Cake, which was Spice cake with Captain Morgan essence and butterrum icing

She made one cake with fondant, so we could see and taste the difference. We brought along my mom and one of FI’s groomsmen to taste with us.

FIs favorite was the Spiced Rum Cake, he loved it! I liked them all. But it was a little out of our price range. It was $1,200 for a four tier cake with fondant icing, supply rental, set-up, etc. And an extra $125 to deliver outside of the Lakeland area to Tampa.

She was very nice, though, and her cakes were beautiful. The problem I had was figuring out what I wanted design-wise. I like this one the best:

What I don’t want is for it to be something people have seen before. Like, oh, look, a cake with ribbon on the bottom. That’s original. I want it to be four or more tiers (possibly fake ones), white, and circular. I’m having problems figuring out how to make it more unique.
Any suggestions? Here are some more pictures of what I like:

What I don’t like:

• the flowers coming off of the “twigs”
• painting on the fondant
• the quilted look