20/06/2023
I LOVE this idea for wedding cakes… a different flavour for each table, so the guests mingle to sample them! They’d be more stable than a multitiered cake in a heatwave like the one we’ve just had in the UK, too.
When Luau and I were planing our wedding, I came upon a concept that I loved: rather than having one over-the top, multitiered wedding cake, the idea was to serve tiny, individual cakes to each guest.
The cakes in the magazine from which this notion came were beautiful and elegant. They were mostly understated, but for the ever-so-delicate spun sugar flowers cascading down the side. To put that another way, when multiplied by our 130 or so guests, they were WAY beyond our budget.
But I was still stuck on the idea, so I got creative .. and ended up actually saving us money as a result. Instead of individual cakes, we did table cakes. Every table had its own (not tiny, but small-ish) wedding cake. And every one was a different flavor.
We had them made by a local baker who was happy to provide ridiculously delicious, iced (but not decorated) cakes. We put them on pedestals and then enlisted our florist to create delicate cascades of *actual* flowers around said cakes.
They became our center pieces, for far, far less than we would have paid for floral arrangements AND far less than we would have paid for a single traditional cake.
The best part was that our friends made a game of it, walking around with forks in hand, introducing themselves to folks at other tables so that they could “taste test” the different flavors. It was silly and utterly delightful.
But Luau and I would still need a cake of our own to cut, and a top tier to freeze for our first anniversary. With all of the choices of flavor combinations, I had no question in my mind what ours would be. It had to be lemon. Lemon cake, lemon icing - lemon.
As it happens, it was a pretty apt metaphor.
Lemon juice is tart and bitter. But with sugar and butter and icing, it tastes, to me, like love.
There are parts of our lives that, taken in isolation, are pretty damned awful. Moments of panic, of abject fear, of despair. Seizures, cancer, monumental loss.
And there’s resilience. And strength. There’s courage and comfort. There’s faith and trust. And when they’re all mixed together, it feels, to me, like love.
Marriage isn’t easy because life isn’t easy. But the truth is, without the lemon juice, the cake would be too sweet to eat.
Twenty four years in, we both thought it would be fun to get a lemon cake for our anniversary, but neither of us had the energy to make one, nor the forethought to order one in advance. Nonetheless, we’re nothing if not resourceful, so we worked with what we had, cracked ourselves up, and made a pretty hilarious memory.
As it happens, that was a pretty apt metaphor, too. 😉
{image is a collage of photos of the following:
Luau and me at our wedding, grinning broadly as we listen to his best man give his toast. In the far right of the photo, you can see our tiny, two-tiered cake, which is leaning to the right, sort of Tower of Pisa-esque.
Luau and me smiling for a selfie while waiting for our table at dinner tonight
The package of Hostess iced lemon cupcakes that we bought on the way home.}
