Up in the Air: A Wedding with Sky High Entertainment

This Pittsburgh couple (literally) took their wedding to new heights.

Photos by Ann Louise Photography

Looking to the sky at Evanee Frank and James Buchner’s wedding, guests didn’t see a bird or a plane. What they did see, though, were aerialists and an upside down wedding cake suspended from a chandelier in the middle of the ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel.
 

“We wanted to entertain ourselves as well as the guests,” Evanee says. “We decided to have the aerialists because we thought it would be unique to the wedding experience.”

Evanee’s cousin is a dancer, and when Evanee decided to have aerialists perform at her wedding, her cousin was able to connect her with a company. Evanee then had to work with the Fairmont to figure out the logistics and ensure that the hotel was equipped with the proper rigging. They were, but there were only so many rig points in the ballroom, so the arrangement of the room became a challenge. Eventually, though, the aerialists were suspended in the middle of the ballroom.
 

Evanee and James also decided to have an upside down cake at their wedding, inspired by actress Kaley Cuoco’s chandelier wedding cake. Cathy Burnheimer of Frosted Envy designed their cake, which featured red roses and painted gold fondant. It was suspended from the chandelier in the middle of the ballroom and coordinated with the couple’s Hollywood theme.

“The cake was sort of part of our entertainment,” Evanee says. “Everyone seemed to love it.”
 

The cake came with its own set of challenges, as the couple had to buy special rigging and make sure that the chandelier could hold the weight of the cake. While cutting an upside down cake might also sound like a challenge, Cathy put metal plates below each layer, and Evanee and James were able to cut a slice from the second tier with no mishaps.