Last Minute Project: Cake Topper

I guess I should back up a second here.  Before I start talking about our cake topper, I should really discuss our cake first.  I wanted something simple, tiered, no fondant.... that was pretty much the extent of my criteria.  I have seen our baker's handy work at the wedding of a good friend that I attended:

So I knew that our baker would do a wonderful job no matter what I specified, but I really wanted to keep it simple.

-------------------------------------Now back to our original story-----------------------------------------

 
Once upon a time, long ago, when I first started reading Weddingbee, I fell in love with a certain Bee's wedding.  Actually, I really fell in love with her cake.  So, using her cake as inspiration, I found this really cute salt & pepper shaker set:

Look familiar?  They should.  I was so inspired by Mrs. Cookie's idea to use these as cake toppers that I high-tailed it over to my nearest Target to search for them (of course, I lucked out and found them). Remember her beautiful cake?

source

After I bought them, I put them away in my craft room and didn't look at or think about them much until about the month before the wedding. When I started doubting my decision to use them atop the cake.
So I went back to the drawing board to find an alternative cake topper.  I absolutely love this book and was immediately smitten with this picture:

I really liked the idea of using bird cake toppers and I thought fabric ones would go perfectly with our theme (if you could call it that).  Instead of using the pattern and materials shown in the book, I bought some felt and thread on one of my many trips to JoAnns and created my own pattern.  After cutting, tracing, stitching, and stuffing, I came up with this:

You can't really tell from the picture, but I added different shades of purple felt for tail feathers.  I used embroidery thread to make the stitches and I had some left over polyester stuffing to fill the inside of the bird.

The original plan was to make two of them, sew in some floral wire (16 gauge) into the bottom of each bird, and stick them in the top tier of our cake.  However, being the indecisive girl that I am, I changed my mind yet AGAIN and ended up going with something completely different.  But you'll have to wait for my recaps to see what it is :) ( I know, I know... the suspense!!)

Did you use a traditional bride and groom cake topper or did you use something a little out of the ordinary?