Wedding Cake Mishap–4.5 years AFTER the wedding?

Between legs of our trip, we had a chance to spend a few days in Kentucky with my family.  It was during this weekend we had another mishap with our wedding cake…

For those of you who don’t know, the cake at our wedding was wrong.  The only thing right about it was the monogram (thank goodness that wasn’t wrong–that would have been VERY noticeable).  The cake was the wrong shape, the wrong number of tiers, the wrong design, AND the wrong kind of cake.  We couldn’t use the cake stand we intended to use, so the cake had to sit on it’s wooden board.  WRONG WRONG WRONG.  If you know me well, you know I LOVE cake, so this was a big deal.  Thankfully, our florist and my former Furman cheerleading sponsor, Mr. Bush, came to the rescue.  He had created a beautiful flower arrangement that sat right in front of the cake.  Fortunately, the eye went straight to the gorgeous flowers instead of to the wrong cake.  This prevented a meltdown.  His shop, Expressions, is amazing!!!  If you EVER need any flowers or anything for any type of occasion in Greenville, SC, go see him.  You can find contact info here.

Looks fine on the outside…

You may be asking, why is this important?  That was 4 and a half years ago.  Well, the cake came back into our lives the weekend before we left for Seattle.  John and I have been living abroad since we’ve been married.  As a result, we haven’t eaten our anniversary tier.  Traditionally, it’s the top layer of the cake, however, the bakery we used bakes a fresh one and sends it to you on your first anniversary.  Because we were in Asia and cake doesn’t ship well over the Pacific, it was sent to my mother who promptly put it in the freezer.  Fast forward a few years–John and I had almost completely forgotten about it until my mom ran across it in the freezer.  So, we pulled it out and let it thaw.

Preparing to cut our cake

You may be thinking, CB, why would you eat 3.5 year old possibly freezer burned cake?  All I can say is, I’ve eaten a lot worse.  It’s better than chicken feet.  Plus, I really liked the cake that we had selected for the wedding.  Surely she got this right–I mean, this was baked a year later from our order sheet.  Right?

Struggling to cut through the freezer burned goodness

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not so attractive picture with the WRONG cake–John doesn’t seem nearly as concerned.

Banana nut cake?

To give you an idea of how wrong it was, when we sliced it open, I was expecting the see the unmistakable scarlet red of red velvet cake.  Red velvet cake is my absolute FAVORITE!!!  It’s a southern US delicacy–a cake with chocolate and enough red food coloring to make it glow all topped with rich cream cheese icing.  I have fond memories of eating red velvet cake every Christmas since I was a little girl and on every trip to my grandparents’ house in Tennessee.  This was getting personal.

But instead of bright red harkening me back to the days of my childhood I saw boring brown.  It looked (and tasted) like banana nut bread.  How can you get banana nut bread from red velvet cake?  NOT THE SAME THING!!!!!!  Both are delicious but one is a breakfast food and does not belong on a wedding cake stand.  So, needless to say, I did not eat more freezer burned cake that night.  Probably better that way.

After all of the cake drama, I had to laugh at myself.  What a first world problem.  I’m just grateful that I got the right groom, because, honestly, that’s what really mattered that day.