Couple Has $16K Colossal Castle Wedding Cake Made — Complete with Lights and Tiny Renaissance Paintings

A UK baker has created a royally epic wedding cake!

For Madeline Burton and her husband Patrick’s January wedding, bespoke pastry artist Sam Woodruff—who owns Bespoke Cakes by Sam in Essex, England—created a stunning, 13-foot-tall royal castle-inspired wedding cake, complete with turrets and spiers, gilded and lights. The colossal dessert was the perfect centerpiece for the couple’s lavish reception, held at the Savoy Ballroom in London.

Woodruff tells PEOPLE that the cake — which cost the newlyweds 13,000 pounds (about $16,500) — took three months to make before the wedding and another six hours to set up at the reception, with help from her husband.

Cake artist Sam Woodruff poses with her castle masterpiece at the Savoy in London.

David Woodruff for custom cakes by Sam

She says she started planning the design as soon as Madeline — her longtime client — announced her engagement. “Many sketches were drawn, many pencils were sharpened, many pictures were used as inspiration,” Woodruff recalls.

“I’ve worked with Madeline for so long that I know what she likes, I know the style and colors she likes. She pretty much gave me a free hand to create the cake,” she continues. “She sent me lots of ideas, my mind then made the cake, and then I had to put it on paper.”

A close-up view of the base of the castle with a carriage and horses and a life-size sword.

David Woodruff for custom cakes by Sam

To create the epic cake, Woodruff used six 8-inch round cakes stacked in a petal pattern to form the base of the structure. The rest of the castle was made of polystyrene, which was covered in white fondant icing decorated with gold leaves.

“It’s not possible to have a design like this made from just cake,” she explains. “For one, it would be too heavy, and can you imagine cutting a slice and then fiddling with the scale? It would surely implode or topple over. Cupcakes are placed around the structure to make cutting easier.”

Bride and groom Madeline and Patrick kiss in front of their wedding cake.

David Woodruff for Custom Cakes by Sam

All in all, she used more than 50 kilograms of fondant. “My arms are super tight from all the spinning exercises,” he jokes.

To bring the cake to life, Woodruff added 3-D printed blue towers and LED balloons to illuminate the windows. The castle was also decorated with cherubs, miniature Renaissance paintings and silk flowers.

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Woodruff tells PEOPLE that one of the biggest challenges she faced with the cake was getting it safely from her home in Essex to London. “It was a very slow journey,” she remembers. “So many bumps in the road and turns!”

The castle windows were also difficult to make, she says. “The windows were very delicate. Cutting them out made the structure quite weak. They had to be padded.”

She also recalls having to live and move around the cake pieces — which filled her kitchen and living room during the construction process — and “prayed to the cake angels that the LED balloons that lit the towers and windows would last and not disappear outside.”

The cake was on display at the couple’s wedding reception at the Savoy Hotel in London.

David Woodruff for custom cakes by Sam

However, in the end, the enormous effort paid off. “[Madeline] she was so happy — thrilled with her dream cake in her dream place,” says Woodruff. “She said the cake was absolutely beautiful and she was speechless.”

She says her masterpiece for Madeline and Patrick was the most ambitious project she’s tackled in her cake-making career.

“I’ve made some big cakes, but nothing this size. The Madeline is definitely the biggest I’ve made so far. I’ve since made a second version, where the couple took me to Ireland to make it,” she tells PEOPLE.

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Source: HIS Education