100 Layer Cake: Where Weddings Go to Be Beautiful

By Lexi Green
July 11, 2011

While helping a friend plan a wedding may not be as hilariously tragic as " Bridesmaids," it can still be a stressful endeavor. From assisting your bestie in the search for the perfect wedding dress to throwing her the ultimate bridal shower to playing emotional interference with unwelcome bridal news (Hair and makeup is an hour late? Not to worry we’ll pass the time peacefully; Great Aunt Betty is about to say something nasty? Let’s distract her with another drink.), the role of helper-of-the-bride (be it maid-of-honor or something else) can be as much of a burden as it is an honor.

For the gals at the wedding planning resource website 100 Layer Cake, however, ensuring the bride’s happiness is all in an day's work—at a dream job, that is.

Jillian Clark, Kristina Meltzer and Amanda Halbrook were three creative friends with personal experience (Clark and Meltzer were married in 2007 and 2008, respectively), a desire to create a showcase for inspiring wedding design and a wish to work together. And so in early 2009, after taking their respective backgrounds into consideration—Brooklyn-based Jillian is a stylist and event designer; Los Angeles-based Amanda is a branding expert and print/web designer; and Kristina, also in L.A., is a web/user experience designer—the trio launched 100 Layer Cake, a blog showcasing gorgeous real-life weddings, tips and ideas.

100 Layer Cake

DIY projects on 100 Layer Cake: Festive Mexican Paper Flowers

In December 2010, they expanded their site to include a carefully curated wedding vendor library and marketplace, where wedding-related goods and services are sold and requested. They also have a huge section of DIY projects and wedding resources and a new virtual pop-up shop.

A browse through 100 Layer Cake will have you making your own festive Mexican paper flowers, in awe of beautiful real weddings, inspired by color boards, taking notes on stylish vendors and venue spotlights (our favorite handmade wedding gurus, Hello!Lucky, were recently featured) and finding the answers to the most difficult bridal questions.

With wedding season in full swing, we turned to these experts.

The Inside Source: Alright, let's get right down to the nitty gritty. How many weddings do you think you have helped with via your site?

100 Layer Cake: We've unknowingly helped plan thousands of weddings through our blog. We get emails all the time from brides thanking us for helping them with the wedding planning process, which is exactly why we do what we do (and, because we love pretty things, of course). Jillian is a professional event designer and has planned weddings around the U.S., Mexico and even Iceland. And of course, whenever one of our friends is getting married, we're in the mix.

100 Layer Cake

Color Boards serve as inspiration on the 100 Layer Cake blog

The Inside Source: What’s your favorite part of doing what you do?

100 Layer Cake: First, we love helping the brides that read our blog find inspiration for their own weddings. And a very close second is connecting our lovely brides to the many talented vendors we know in the industry. We often hear that people don't know where to start looking for the perfect photographer once they start planning their wedding, and we love that we can help the right people meet and make something beautiful!

The Inside Source: What should every person know who is helping a friend plan a bridal shower or pre-wedding event?

100 Layer Cake: Figure out what the bride wants to do! You don't have to throw a bridal shower on a Sunday afternoon in a family friend's living room, because that “seems” like the norm. Especially, if the bride loves the outdoors or has a passion for surfing or something. Have the shower on the beach in the evening or something equally creative.

The Inside Source: Do you have any bridal shower themes that you especially love and could recommend to our readers?

100 Layer Cake: Wine tasting with delicious cheeses and snacks on a Saturday evening never gets old!

100 Layer Cake

The blog features countless real weddings

The Inside Source: If you could do your own wedding all over again, what would you recruit your friends to help you with this time around?

100 Layer Cake: Maybe flowers, if we were doing our own flowers. And of course, stamping envelopes and tying up wedding favors. There are endless things you can use an extra set of hands for!

The Inside Source: The best part of watching your friend get ready to walk down the aisle is...

100 Layer Cake: Putting on the dress.

The Inside Source: How do you use eBay to help you plan for any kind of wedding-related event?

100 Layer Cake: eBay is such an amazing resource for unique bridal shower gifts, vintage wedding decor, fabric and wallpaper and craft supplies. It's endless, the list of treasures that eBay keeps giving!