The Romans left us with a terrible wedding tradition. Grooms would break a cake of wheat or barley over the bride’s head for good luck. Such aggressiveness! To this day, you still see grooms smashing cake into their lovely wives’ faces.
How awful, as you can see below.
The bride is bleeding. She’s upset, and she’s a mess, so future wedding photographs are ruined, not to mention her wedding gown. Does any of this really seem like a good omen to you?
Public humiliation
How about this bride, do you think she enjoyed the public humiliation of experiencing a wedding cake smash up?
This poor bride whacked her head on the dance floor. In fairness, she instigated the wedding cake smash up, but no bride deserves this type of embarrassment.
Bride’s Pye
The Brits moved away from a wedding cake and towards what they called the Bride’s Pye in the Middle Ages. Check out the recipe from a 1660 recipe called the “Accomplish’t Cook”:
“To make an extraordinary Pie, or a Bride Pye, of Severall Compounds, being several different Pies on one bottom: Provide cocks-stones and combs, or lamb-stones and sweetbreads of veal, a little set in hot water and cut to pieces; also two or three oxe pallets blanched and slic’t, a pint of oysters, sliced dates, a handful of pine kernels, a little quantity of broom-buds pickled, some fine interlarded bacon sliced, nine or ten chestnuts roasted and blanched, season them with the salt, nutmeg, and some large mace, and close it up with some butter.”
[For those of you with less-than-adventurous palates, you should know that cocks and lamb stones are testicles, intended to add an aphrodisiac element to this culinary experience!]
The Bride’s Pye was beautifully decorated and had a ring hidden inside it as a forerunner to the modern bouquet toss. The woman who found the ring in her piece of pie was predicted to be the next woman in line to get married. (Let’s hope she doesn’t choke to death on the ring first!)
Aah, tradition!
If you go with a nice, modern cake-cutting tradition, nix the wedding cake smash up, and keep it clean and simple, like this couple did:
If you are hellbent on the wedding cake smash up, plan it in advance. Do NOT surprise your new spouse. Tip off the photographer in advance so he can be prepared to get a good shot of the event, and use a small serving to minimize the mess.
The cake-cutting is a prime opportunity for a good song. We can suggest some proper ones for the occasion. Give us a call to tell us more about your upcoming celebration at 614-224-1945.
