Well, normally at work the job is divided up; the baker bakes (who knew?) the cake and makes the icing and filling, another decorator might do the basic assembly, and I'd finish. For commercial production, division of labor into specialties is a must, though I can do (and have done) all of those steps. On several occasions I've made a cake completely from scratch by myself, and it is a ton of work. The Embossed cake I did for a friend took more than 20 hours all told, and made about 250 servings. As you might expect, though, it all depends on the complexity of the cake. A plain fondant three-tier cake with flowers on top might only take a couple of hours to finish off, but something like the Wedgewood cake might take closer to eight hours.

Of course, if you are doing a large cake in painfully small home-size batches, you are going to take a lot longer. I've been spoiled by 80-qt mixers and lots of work space. Tackling a wedding cake out of your home would certainly make you a braver woman than I!

Don't let that discourage you, however. Baking and decorating can be a ton of fun if that is the kind of thing you enjoy; both usually require patience and precision. I'd recommend the books "Baking Illustrated" and "Cookwise," as both go into the science behind the food and are excellent troubleshooting resources without being boring or overly technical.

This concludes my long-winded and overly detailed response. Thanks!