Dessert Decisions

I’m not going to lie. I was this close to doing a dessert bar. A lot of our people (yes, I call our guests our people) are not from a small town. I am always receiving grief about my “small town” ideas and musings so I kind of wanted our wedding to be a showcase of small town greatness. How awesome, I thought, if some of this was done in the dessert bar. We could have pecan pie, butter milk pie, all kinds of cobbler’s cooked chuck wagon style (yes, cobblers taste WAY better cooked over a fire, and yes I know people who could make ALL of these desserts for us), homemade cookies, and maybe even some homemade ice cream!

But then I started thinking, what would we cut? I mean, traditionally bride’s and groom’s cut their wedding cake, and if we didn’t have one then there would be no grand cake cutting event. Googling, I found that most people who have dessert bars try to have a one layer cake that they use for the cutting ceremony. Well, that makes sense, but to me it was cheating. A having your cake and eating it too situation *pun intended. When I weighed my options, it was have a cake and cake cutting ceremony, or these great desserts and no fluff and fanfare. There was no middle ground(yes, I am that stubborn friend who see’s everything in black and white and doesn’t understand why you wont just do what I say).

So, I went with cake. After evaluating a few things, logistically it was easier and monetarily, for us, the cake was cheaper. I know its hard to believe, but sometimes practicality DOES win out when planning a wedding. But I’m so glad it did for this particular element at our wedding. When I started looking at pictures of cakes, I was blown away! These were not your mom and dad’s cakes anymore. Out were the cakes from the 80’s that had bridges leading from one tier to another, and in were the amazing textured cakes that could have anything from polka dots to stripes to….wait for it…. even ruffles! I loved these new cakes that could have anything from an intricate design, to a simple, understated polka dot icing outside.

When I met with my cake lady, this is what I had compiled for my inspiration:

I had decided that I really wanted something with texture, I wanted it round after toying with the square cake idea just to be different, and I didn’t want any flowers on it. I know some of the pictures show flowers, but I really just like the cakes that they are decorating. And eventually, I settled on this one as my favorite:

But our whole cake will be ruffles, and we wont have the plain fondant tier in the middle. Now the hard part is deciding on 3 or 4 tiers. I guess once again, it will come down to practicality. Do we really NEED 4 tiers? Maybe….guess we’ll have to see how much it costs 