Bride and Groom Build a Giant DIY Wedding Cake Stage with Toilet Brushes from Temu: See Photos! (Exclusive)

Sam Hwang and Logan Corona created a larger-than-life dessert scene for wedding guests to use as an interactive photo backdrop

Courtesy of Sam Hwang Sam Hwang is on the DIY wedding cake scene — Courtesy of Sam Hwang

Sam Hwang stands in the scene of her DIY wedding cake

After being quoted $16,000 for a stage that looked like a wedding cake, the couple took matters into their own hands and built it themselves.

As the founder of two wedding businesses, Crazy Florist and For the Table, Sam Hwang27, knew she had to go all out for her wedding to 28-year-old Logan Corona. The couple had a message booth, a vintage Thunderbird convertible and more at their Sept. 26 wedding at Penny Lane Ranch, but their custom platform took the cake (literally).

The California couple, who knew each other in high school but didn’t connect romantically until after college, have now gone viral on TikTok to DIY her giant wedding cake scene, which took three weekends to complete but saved her thousands of dollars.

Courtesy of Sam Hwang Logan Corona and Sam Hwang — Courtesy of Sam Hwang

Logan Corona and Sam Hwang

“Doing it ourselves, we probably spent about $3,000 in total, including material costs and shipping costs, so we saved over half that amount,” Hwang tells PEOPLE.

To set the scene on a budget, the newlyweds sourced a pre-fab wooden stage from Event Decor Direct and plastered it. They also made chutes on the sides of the stage and used silicone molds for the icing.

The real-life “tops” were made from cherry-shaped toilet brushes the couple bought from online marketplace Temu, placed on top of the foam balls. Hwang got the idea to use Temu brushes because he already had one in his bathroom and knew they cost a lot less than the cherry carvings he was seeing online.

“When I was thinking about making a life-size cherry tree, it was at least $200 each. So that’s when the idea came,” she explains. “I said, ‘Well, we have a cherry plunger downstairs. Let’s use this.” That’s $5 from Temu versus $200.”

Courtesy of Sam Hwang Temu's cherry-shaped toilet brushes topped the stage of the wedding cake — Courtesy of Sam Hwang

Temu’s cherry-shaped toilet brushes topped the wedding cake stage

After Hwang and Corona made minor tweaks to the venue, their vision for a grand reception show came to life.

“We wanted to make everything feel very personal,” says Hwang, who got engaged to Corona in April 2023 after three years of dating. “The reason for the cake scene was just something we wanted to create together. I knew that with our past, we were always more creative. My husband is very handy and can build a lot of things, and we’ve done this in the past for various house projects, so building something like this made sense for our wedding.”

The couple’s 85 wedding guests loved the interactive photo backdrop.

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“Some of the older guests were just in disbelief,” Hwang tells PEOPLE. “They didn’t know we could stand up. A lot of our close friends knew we were building it, so seeing it in real life I think it shocked a lot of people, especially since it looks smaller in the photos than it is in real life, so yeah easily transporting all of this and being able to build it was really fun and a great surprise for our guests.

Halloween, Hwang announced that the oversized cake stage is now available for rent in California from For the Table for $1,500 per day.