For the royal wedding of King Goodwill Zwelithini’s daughter, Princess Nombuso to Dr. Seshi Chonco on Saturday, 2nd July 2000 guests descended upon the International Convention Centre in Durban to partake in this joyous occasion. But, it wasn’t only the guests who had to make special travel arrangements to be at the wedding. The wedding cake was made in Cape Town and had to be flown in for the special day. Princess Nombuso approached Woolworths to make her wedding cake. As a gift to King Zwelithini and his daughter, Woolworths’ created a special fruitcake recipe for the big day, using extra walnuts and fruit pieces to ensure an extra luxurious texture. Leading up to the day, the Woolworths’ bakery team couriered cakes for tasting, decoration ideas, ribbon samples and delicate flowers made from icing for the Princess’s seal of approval. “It was an honor for Woolworths to be asked to bake the wedding cakes for Princess Nombuso, we all agreed that we would like to give the Princess and King Zwelithini the cakes as a gift”, says Richard Eskinazi, Woolworths: Foods Executive in Marketing. The final order placed was for one large, three-tier cake, 10 single round cakes for each of the King’s wives plus 2000 mini cakes; one for each guest attending the wedding. Each large cake was topped with a layer of marzipan and icing and decorated with a posy of beautiful, hand-crafted roses made from a delicate yellow icing while the mini fruitcakes were iced with marzipan and white sugar icing and tied with a pink ribbon. The cakes needed to get safely from Cape Town where they were baked and iced, to Durban for the wedding celebrations.

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