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

August 12 2019
We love it when Charleston is the backdrop for a budding romance, and we love it even more when a couple who started here returns for their “I do’s.” So it went with Amanda and Joey, who both...

August 12 2019
When a gal can name how many days she’s dated her beau (“One thousand and nine, but who’s counting?” laughs Erin), you know she’s ready for him to put a ring on it. When Matthew obliged, he and his...

August 8 2019
Sometimes it’s just so better said coming straight from the bride, so away we go into hearing it all from Houstin, Texas, resident Megan… (besides, we’re pretty sure we couldn’t get away with calling...

August 8 2019
We’re sure that Laura and Brian wanted their wedding day at Lowndes Grove Plantation to go on forever, because, duh, but we have to say we want it to, too! Why, now? Take a look at their insanely...

August 7 2019
Leave it to a couple from Texas to make a big splash of a wedding here in Charleston. Not only did Alicia and Walker pick an iconic mansion, the William Aiken House, for their reception, but they...

August 6 2019
“For months before the wedding,” says Mike, “Taryn would say, ‘Just wait! You won’t believe how amazing this day is going to be.’ ”And amazing it was. From the perfectly planned pink palette to the...

July 31 2019
August is just around the corner (like tomorrow, oh-em-gee) and school is about to be back in session. Do we hear all of those moms emitting a sigh of relief? To celebrate the end of this dreadfully...

July 30 2019
Kelly and Will met in an elementary school in 2013 … not while they were attending, of course, but while they were both teaching in Cleveland, Mississippi, for Teach for America Corps. Every...