My Own Wedding Horror Story

Frank and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this Saturday in the traditional way: Belgian waffles for breakfast. Of course, there's a story.

Shortly after making our grand entrance into the Old Well ballroom at the Carolina Inn on September 8, 1990, my mother pulled me aside. In the gentle tones one usually reserves for speaking to a cranky toddler, my mother said, "Now, don't get upset," (which I believe is a sure way to alert someone to to the fact that whatever follows is going to be highly upsetting) "but over there is where your cake should be."

Sure enough, the cake table was empty. No cake. Just a sad little cake topper, completely forlorn. My wedding cake was AWOL.

Just a week earlier, I'd met with the cake baker to pay her in full for my chocolate and strawberry confection, a picture of which I'd found in Southern Living a year prior and kept in my handy-dandy bride's planning notebook. We went over all the details again, including exactly what time the cake should be delivered. So imagine my surprise when just seven short days later -- NO CAKE.

It's one of those wedding-day nightmares that keep brides up at night. A vendor fails to deliver as promised and some element of the wedding day is compromised or ruined. (My poor mother --  I'm sure she hated to have to tell me my wedding cake was missing and had no idea how I would react to such potentially upsetting news, which might explain the riot gear).

Man, was I ever looking forward to that cake. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a freak for wedding cake. It may even be why I got into the wedding photography business. (I think I'll write it in to my contract: "Photographers must be fed wedding cake, preferably with lots of icing.") At that moment, though, I was just too happy to let someone else's screw-up
ruin my wedding day. Frank still says when my mother broke the news and I shrugged my shoulders in a "whatchagonnado" manner, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he "hit the jackpot." (He is happy to report that 17 years, two kids and two dogs later, I am still fairly laid-back.)

Anyway, back to the Belgian waffles. We had a morning wedding with a brunch following that included a Belgian waffle station. With the combined brain-power of a quick-thinking bridesmaid and my mother, a waffle wedding cake was quickly assembled, decorated with strawberries and lots of whipped cream. We cut it and fed it to each other as if it was the most delicious wedding cake ever created. Our photographer, the brilliant veteran Dean Craddock of Reidsville, NC, immortalized the waffle wedding cake in a manner befitting the most extravagant confection. On our wedding video, I'm ruefully laughing as I make my way back to my seat after the cutting ceremony saying, "Well, something had to go wrong."

Looking back 17 years later, it was a great moment. I tell this story to brides at consultations not to scare them or flaunt my own high-mindedness (believe me, that baker was terrified I was going to sue her when we got off the phone.) There's so much pressure on brides to plan the perfect wedding. You're told over and over again in big and small ways, "This is the most important day of your life and it has to be perfect." I couldn't disagree more! Whenever you have an event planned by human beings, error is going to be a part of the equation. It's unavoidable, but it doesn't have to ruin your day. Besides, there are going to be many "most important days." Sometimes, a "mistake" can turn into a tradition, the way the missing wedding cake has for us. Come September 8th, each and every year, you'll find us at a local IHOP having Belgian waffles and remembering what was just the first of the many most-important days that we have had together.

Come inside to see my vanity wedding cake picture.