People, I’ve never been a huge fan of cupcake wedding cakes. I can appreciate their cuteness and everything, but they’re just not my style.

So you can imagine my horror when my mother demanded that we serve cupcakes at our wedding. Why couldn’t we do something weird and different, like homemade pies, or (my idea) a giant mountain of Belgian waffles and French toast? Well, apparently she and her friends still want a modicum of tradition at our wedding, so the cupcakes are my way of honoring that.

…but since I’m doing cupcakes, I’m gonna do them my way. I spent about half a day researching and found an incredible cupcakery in Seattle called Look Cupcakes. Oh, and did I mention that they FILL their cupcakes? Yeah. I’ll let you marinate on that for a while.

So here’s my vision: we’re doing mini-cupcakes (3 minis equal one big’un), because I want to have some cool flavors for my guests to eat. Plus mini-cupcakes might be the most darling thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The European-style meringue buttercream frosting will be different shades of yellow and white, and the cupcakes will be displayed at varying levels on square pedestals, rather than on a traditional cupcake tower. We’re talking 600 mini-cupcakes here, people. I’m not messing around.

But enough about that; you probably want to hear the flavors I chose. Drumroll, please…

The Feather Boa (coconut cream cake, mojito cheesecake filling, vanilla swiss meringue buttercream), Summer in Your Hand (lemon cake with raspberry cheesecake filling and raspberry meringue buttercream), a custom chai cake with salted caramel filling and hazelnut meringue buttercream and a vegan Emperor’s New Grove (vegan chocolate cake, Valencia orange vegan ganache and Valencia orange vegan buttercream.)

I made up that custom one with chai cake, caramel filling, and hazelnut buttercream – hopefully Rhienn (the owner of Look Cupcakes, whose blog you can read here) will name the flavor after me.

People, here’s why you want cupcakes at your wedding: the tasting. Ohhhh, the tasting. Such a traditional, delicious, 100 percent yummy and decadent wedding experience. Rhienn does her tastings a little differently by “deconstructing” the cupcakes and bringing you a plate of cake flavors with a plate of filling and buttercream flavors. TELL me this doesn’t make your stomach lurch with yearning:

The cake flavors shown above are (clockwise from the top left, which I’ve always wanted to say because it sounds like a magazine): lemon cake, vanilla cake with chocolate ganache filling, and coconut cream cake. The fillings (clockwise from the top left) are: raspberry cheesecake, mojito cheesecake, chocolate ganache, chocolate meringue buttercream, hazelnut buttercream, Swiss vanilla buttercream, and my personal favorite – salted caramel. Rhienn and her peeps make everything from scratch using all-natural ingredients. No artificial flavoring or chemicals to speak of. So that caramel you see up there – that’s from a vat of caramel that she makes herself. Swoon.

Here’s the aftermath, about five minutes after these photos were taken:

Immediately after I took that second photo I grabbed my spoon and cleaned the plate without any accompanying cake. I gotta tell you: a plate of buttercream is a wonderful thing indeed.

What are your thoughts on cupcakes vs. wedding cakes vs. alternative wedding desserts? What would you do, or what did you do for your own wedding?