Hearts bursting and falling for a birthday

I used to work in a well-known fast-food outlet before having the kids.  A good few years before having them, actually, but you know what I mean.  I really quite enjoyed it, it was very fast-paced, and challenging at times, but such a good laugh when a shift went well.  I worked with lots and lots of people during my years there - on a busy weekend shift we could have nearly 40 staff on in a day!  Anyway, one such person was A, and his wife S worked there too.  They got in touch recently to say they'd been watching my page and cake progress and wished to order a cake for their eldest's 18th birthday.  What??!!  Wasn't she just the same age as my Mini-1?!  Gosh, aren't children just the best (and worst) thing for proving how quickly time flies?

Anyway, their daughter had seen a cake of mine and wished to make some changes to it.  I duly met with A and S, in my first proper cake consultation - that was exciting!  Usually it's a case of back and forth with emails or texts, so a face-to-face meeting was fun.  Glad it was old colleagues for my first time though...

They hadn't planned a party for her to start with, but decided to go for it after all.  So we decided upon a cake as a centrepiece and a few dozen matching mini cupcakes for nibbles.  

The birthday girl chose to have some hearts bursting out of the top of the cake, and other cascading from the burst, across the cake to the bottom edge.

Her name and age were embossed onto the cake base, and highlighted in glitter piping icing

 The request for the cupcake decorations were J's, 18's, hearts and flowers.

A was due to collect the cake at midday, but I got a panicked call a half hour later to say that his lift hadn't arrived and he was about to jump on a bus.  A bus?!  He'd need at least 2 to get across to me, as our buses tend to go into the city centre and back out again like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, rather than across.  And he would have struggled to keep all the boxes flat in carriage.  Luckily I'd had my afternoon appointment cancelled, so was able to deliver the goodies.  And what a lovely surprise it was to receive this card and box of lovely chocolates from them, as a thank you for making the cakes.  Awwww...