Elevate Your Taste



PHOTOGRAPHER CREDIT: 
Elevate Your Taste | Wood turner Ashley Harwood crafts custom cake stands that you’ll love long after the last crumb is gone

Whether you pore over recipes with Grandma Jane to sort out how that family favorite can stretch to feed 150 or you dish out a baker’s dozen of Benjamins for a store-bought confection, cake is a major focal point of this major milestone. But given how much thought goes into the treat itself, how can it be that the pedestals, plates, and platters used to showcase the sweet thing itself tend to fall on the ho-hum side?



Enter Charleston wood turning artist Ashley Harwood (yes, that’s her real name). While she’s known about town for Turning Native (www.AshleyHarwood.net), her booth at the Charleston Farmer’s Market that’s stocked with turned wood bowls, jewelry, and ornaments, this past spring she made her first foray into the wedding world when she partnered with Charleston Crepe Company (843/573-3458; www.CharlestonCrepeCompany.com) and crafted a series of slender walnut cake stands of staggered sizes to display their stacked goodies.

Now offering the stands (all custom-made and priced accordingly) directly to couples, Ashley says that her pieces live on long after the Big Day has passed. Their sleek silhouettes suit contemporary and traditional cakes and settings alike, and when dismantled­—they screw into each other and stand alone, too—can be integrated into your newlywed home décor to showcase artwork, curiosities, and, of course, treats, too.

The Wedding Row

May 9 2019
Morning, lovelies! Boy, do we have one for you today. But before we get into all the goodness, let’s get acquainted with the stars of the show … A meet-cute at a mutual friend’s birthday...

May 8 2019
Some brides just have such a knack for talking about their Big Day that we have to let you hear their own words on the matter. So it is with Angelia, who wed her now-husband Bobby at Old Wide Awake...

May 7 2019
We’ve heard our fair share of wedding day blooper stories here at The Wedding Row, but this may be the first time we’ve heard of the bride’s wedding band falling through the cracks of a rooftop deck...

May 7 2019
Amanda got an early gift the year Zach walked into her pre-birthday celebration with a couple of their mutual friends. The two Wilmington, North Carolina, dwellers hit it off immediately, and nearly...

May 3 2019
Spring is in full swing here in the Lowcountry—in fact, it feels more like summer outside—so we’re celebrating this first Friday in May by sharing an appropriately colorful shoot. Event planning...

May 2 2019
It’s not often that we get to talk about farm life here at The Wedding Row, so we’re especially excited to share the story behind today’s engagement shoot. Emma and Blake, who live in Nebraska but...

May 1 2019
When Mike swiped right on Ryan on OkCupid, he inadvertently created their future wedding hashtag: #MikeSwipedRy. And thank goodness these two found each other, because their wedding just goes to show...

April 30 2019
Good morning, Wedding Row-ers! Pour yourself a big cup of coffee (or is it Tea-day Tuesday?) and get ready to dive into one seriously gorgeous post, if we do say so ourselves. Cayleigh Hopkins of The...