Our very own Toni – I call her that because you ought to recognize her as a frequent commenter — sent me a bunch of links to photos of her cousin’s recent wedding. What you may not know about Toni is that she’s a fantastic photographer who’s shot a wedding or two in her day, including the one you’re about to see.
Toni described the wedding thusly:
If you want to tell the world that either you or your spouse is a dedicated commitmentphobe, there’s no shortage of cake toppers that will help you do just that. Perhaps you had to carry your man to the altar? Or reel him in with a fly fisherman’s gentle touch? Are you ready to choke him for waiting for so long?
Notice a trend? In case it doesn’t jump right out at you, I’ll spell it out: It’s always the poor little plastic groom that’s being dragged around, forced into matrimony, or even physically injured!
Thank goodness for Archie McPhee, right? Finally, someone is manufacturing a tacky cake topper for those heterosexual couples in which it’s the lady-half who isn’t quite ready to say “I do.”
As you probably already have guessed, I HATE it, but that’s because I generally hate all cake toppers that aren’t something kooky like Matchbox racers or action figures. I’m kind of enamored with the notion that someone thinks there is enough of a demand for guy-dragging-girl toppers. At least they’re ready to admit that not all men secretly want to stay swingin’ single and not all women are frothing at the bit to get married.
Is this what modern-day gender equality looks like? Yeesh!
The emerging gay wedding demographic has come up quite a bit here at Manolo for the Brides as of late. With the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling — go Cali! — you can bet that there are scads of couples are sprinting toward the altar.
You can also rightly assume that “gay weddings” (a term I really dislike because it’s not a gayyyyyy wedding, it’s just a wedding) are all over the news. Why, just this morning I was knocking back the first latte of the day and listening to NPR when a story came on about Renellie, maker of what they call the world’s first interracial and interchangeable wedding cake toppers.
I do dispute the claim, because there are plenty of topper shops that let you buy figurines individually, whether you want an Asian bride and an Asian groom or an African American bride and a Native American bride or just one white groom because your fiance is a furry and you’re going to pair it with a statue of an anthropomorphic fox.
And yet, I’ve got to hand it to topper designer Rena Puebla for loudly jumping on the same-sex-wedding-friendly vendor bandwagon because my own mother was pretty well ensconced in the proverbial closet not twenty years ago. We’ve come a long way, baby!
The idea for interracial, interchangeable wedding cake toppers sprang fully formed into Puebla’s mind when she, an African American chick engaged to an Asian dude, was unable to find a topper that looked like her and her intended.
“When two people fall in love and become engaged,” she says, “there is so much going on in their lives that the last thing they should have to worry about is the unfamiliar and awkward representation of themselves on the cake.”
So where do I stand on the toppers themselves? I appreciate that Puebla has good intentions, and $70 per couple isn’t entirely unreasonable for a 7″ handpainted figure. I would imagine — though I cannot say for sure — that it must be refreshing to see a statuette of oneself when one has been “left out in the cold” for some time. And maybe, just maybe, same-sex couples in the US have been barred from officially enjoying the traditionalesque wedding for so long that they crave matrimony with all the trimmings.
But really, when it comes right down to it, these toppers are just not all that attractive. I’d much rather see something kooky like two G.I. Joes or something indicative of the couple’s interests like, say, a surfboard and an astrological symbol*. How about some Matchbox cars or two different busts of Tutankhamen or a couple of those cute birds Ann Wood makes?
Heck, if you want a topper that looks like you, get some mini frames, take some cute snapshots, and stick ‘em in the cake. Problem solved!
* I’m looking at you, mom!
Unless the point of the show is to instruct prospective brides in the finer points of carrying out DIY doings, such projects are usually presented on television as a silly idea doomed to failure from the outset because you should leave that sort of thing to the professionals, you silly, incompetent bride-person, you. If they work out, someone carefully points out that if it had gone wrong, clearly the wedding would have been ruined. If the bride, her mother, or her friend is unsuccessful, droll or doleful music is played and the scenes are cut to make it clear that there was never any chance of anything short of disaster.
But is disaster so inevitable? Not necessarily. In fact, if approached thoughtfully and planned intelligently, DIY projects can add tremendously to the intimacy and charm of a wedding without causing undo fuss behind the scenes. Let’s deconstruct a DIY disaster on a recent episode of Bridezillas and see how it might have been done more successfully.
Tiny cakes continue to be a hot nuptial commodity based on the preponderance of cupcake stands and cupcake wrappers out there. As grand as traditional tiered cakes can be–and wow, are they ever fabulous when they’re done right–couples are still gravitating toward cake in personal portions.
I’ve seen cupcakes doled out during cake cuttings and cupcakes stacked as centerpieces all reception long, which meant that some guests were noshing on cake before dinner was even served! What role haven’t I seen cupcakes take on? Well, I’ve never seen cupcakes given away as a wedding favor. This is probably because cake is smushy-mushy and must be boxed well lest it be rendered inedible during travel.
So how do you render little cakes fit for transport? If you’re the lovely and talented Bakerella, you make them EVEN LITTLER! And, sometimes, but not always, you put them on sticks:
Bakerella’s tiny cupcake tutorial makes it look so easy, which usually means that the project at hand will be really difficult. Not this time, however. As long as you’re patient enough to wait for melted chocolate to dry (just eat some while you wait) and mold a bunch of cakeballs into cupcakes, you’ll do just fine. The best thing about these…besides the fact that they’re so dang simple to make…is that there is icing mixed right into the cake. Yum!
If you’re looking for a fun DIY favor, think about whether you fancy spending a bit of time in the kitchen baking, rolling, and icing one or more mini-mini cupcakes per guest. Should it happen that the answer is yes, go thank Bakerella for posting such a well written and easy-to-follow tutorial. I’ll be doing just that when I whip these up for my impending book release party!
EDIT — Here’s an alternate, even easier tutorial!
Last week was wedding week on the Food Network. I didn’t catch everything by a longshot, but I did make certain to watch at least a few shows. Shut up. It was research. Really. It wasn’t just a chance to gawk at pretty cakes and snark on wedding gowns and decide how I would have done things differently. It wasn’t. It was a selfless search for wedding knowledge to pass on to my loyal readers…and just a little bit of an excuse to gawk and snark and so on.
Anyway, I saw two shows about a show I’d never heard of before, but now intend to watch for news about with eagerness: The Oklahoma State Sugar Arts Show Wedding Cake Contest. I couldn’t believe some of the things I was seeing on television. Of course, it seemed the cameras cut away far too quickly from the ones that I found most intriguing from a distance, but one day I’d love to come visit the show. Contestants come literally from all over the world to compete (one of the shows aired followed four contestants in their bid for sugar art fame, including one man from Sri Lanka), but only the best of the best take home prizes.
Of course, after watching all of that, I found myself wanting to peruse more cakes. I didn’t have a cake at my wedding. I don’t in any way regret that, mind. It was virtually the only thing I managed to do for Mr. Twistie, who is not fond of cake, because it was nearly the only opinion he expressed. Besides, those individual fruit tarts were a huge hit with our guests. But every now and again, I want a really gorgeous cake with fabulous decorations and I don’t really have an excuse to go out and have one made. A bit of window shopping usually scratches that itch and allows me to go on without regret. Usually.
I love anything one can buy without having to schlep one’s tush to the store. In fact, while planning my wedding, I looked for any and every opportunity to shop from the confines of my office…then I wrote a book about it! I do understand that there are some folks who get a real kick out of going to the mall or exchanging pleasant banter with shopkeeps, but I’m guessing that for every one of them there’s someone like me who’d rather not spend their Saturdays braving the retail gauntlet.
Some things are just designed for online shopping–faux flowers, dresses, paper goods, and favors come to mind. Other things don’t fare so well when squeezed into a cramped mail truck. Thus far, all of my efforts to find fancy iced wedding and shower appropriate cake were for naught. Sure, you can buy cheesecakes and petit fours and rum cake, but the rigors of shipping heretofore demanded some degree of cakey stability, ruling out varieties commonly associated with nuptials.
Until now, that is…
Fat Daddy Bake Shop takes cupcakes to the next level, packaging them in little canning jars for easy delivery via airmail. At $65 for ten 1/2 pint cupcakes–or should I call them jarcakes–it’s unlikely you’ll be sending your wedding guests home with sweets ensconced in glass. That price point does, however, lend itself to serving them to bridal shower and bachelorette party attendees or giving them to attendants as part of gift baskets.
And, happily, the flavor selection lends itself to NOM NOM NOMing. Were I to choose five, I’d pick the butter cake filled with coconut and layered with cream cheese frosting; banana cake with butterscotch chips and golden butterscotch frosting; brown sugar butter cake blended with toffee bits and topped with chocolate buttercream; vanilla cake with coffee, chocolate chips and layered with vanilla buttercream, and dark chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache, caramel and walnuts, topped with caramel buttercream and nuts. Then I’d lapse straight into a sugar-induced coma because I have absolutely no willpower to speak of.
I’m not sure if I think this is a neat idea or a bizarre idea. I suppose it all depends how much your wedding memories are worth to you. For example, some people think nothing of devoting a huge chunk of their budget to professional photography while others are content to leave disposable cameras on each reception table.
The skinny is that ceramicist and Richmond-native Emily Hunter Taylor will hand-sculpt and hand-paint a five-inch tall porcelain recreation of your wedding cake. She scales down the original measurements of your cake to ensure everything is to scale and the icing is made using liquid clay to ensure a nice finish.
So…Neat? Bizarre? What I do know is that it’s an expensive idea. Custom cake replicas start at $500, which means that you could very well be paying as much for an inedible porcelain cake as you did for the great big tasty cake that delighted your guests. Whether or not you think it’s a good deal will likely depend on how emotionally attached you were to your wedding cake.
If it’s simply too rich for your blood, but you are desperate to keep your cake, try sourcing one from Fun Cake Rental. For less money than you’d spend on a ceramic repro, Kimberly Aya will whip you up a pretty faux full-size cake that will keep forever with a little care. The concept is simple — serve your guests similarly colored sheet cake, and they’ll be none the wiser.
Or will they? I’ve never attended a wedding with a fake cake…that I know of. It wouldn’t bother me if I found out the cake on my plate wasn’t the cake on display. It also wouldn’t bother me if bride and groom fed me pie or cookies or brownies. Have you ever been to a reception where it was painfully obvious that the cake was a sham?
*Alternate headline: Fake-a-cake?
The other day, I extolled the virtues of Wilton’s DIY cake guide because it is the most comprehensive free guide I’ve ever come across. Wilton, I thought naively, must rule at all things. It was only much later that I realized that this picture of an utterly horrid cake topper has the Wilton logo splashed in the upper left hand corner.
When I look at this topper, all I can see is a man in drag carrying around one of those o-mouthed blow up dolls. I can’t be the only person who felt they were looking at Mr. Wife and his friend “Rock Hard,” as this particular bride and groom set is nowhere to be found among Wilton’s current offerings.
Not that there’s anything wrong with silly toppers, if that’s your thing. Check out a snapshot of my own less-than-bridey topper under the cut.
It reminds me of when I worked at a florist with a lesbian couple that was planning their...
