Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Wedding Wednesday And A Birthday

Hello, friends!  It's my birthday today - did you know that?  But it's also Wedding Wednesdays, and there is something that birthdays and weddings share.  I will tell you what it is, if you lean in very close to hear the secret:
Okay, so it's not so much a secret.  Weddings and birthdays both include cake.  Had you guessed that?  You clever things, you.  So, for today's Wedding Wednesday post, let's talk about cake.

I have to admit that I've never imagined having a classic wedding cake.  From anecdotal evidence, it seems like most people don't end up eating cake at weddings, especially not when there's also a plated dessert being served.  So when Jon and I started batting around ideas, I really pushed for a cheese cake.  No, not a cheesecake; a cheese cake.  I wanted stacked wheels of cheese, like these:

[ clockwise from top left: one, two, three, four ]

We wouldn't only have cheese after the meal - because in Europe, unlike in America, the cheese course follows dinner, though the English and the French disagree on whether it appears before or after dessert - but I thought that it would make a delicious savory partner to the dessert bar that I also imagined we might incorporate.  (In this scenario, we wouldn't have a seated/plated dessert at all, but that's a conversation for another post.)

Jon, however, chose this moment to be a staunch traditionalist.  Wedding cake, he said he wanted, and not just any wedding cake: he pictured white and tiers and pillars.  Yes, pillars.  I suppose I should be glad that he didn't insist on fruitcake, which I can't stand but which is, historically, what is served as wedding cake in England.  It took Jon a little while, but he did finally talk me round to the merits of having a classic wedding cake - although I drew the line at pillars.

[ clockwise from top left: one, two, three, four, five ]

To be honest, now that Jon's convinced me that we need a traditional wedding cake, I'm playing with the idea of having lots of cakes on a sideboard - everyone could help themselves throughout the course of the evening, after dinner ends.  But, again, that's a discussion for another post.  For today, we'll stick with some good old-fashioned birthday cake!

I'm linking up with something charming for today's post - go check out some great tips on how to find your photographer!

16 comments:

  1. I think lots of different cake would be cool! We did (5.5 years ago so a lifetime ago :) ) a cake, cupcakes and a traditional British fruit cake. We also did a grooms cake at the rehearsal dinner. Do you know how many cakes I actually ate? One bite of the main cake. I didn't even try the rest of it! But, that is pretty normal for food for any bride and groom, you don't get to enjoy it because you are too busy having fun!

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  2. Oh, and happy, happy birthday! x

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  3. Ugh, just don't have a fruit cake- that totally grossed me out when I read that was the tradition here!! We had two regular sized cakes (German chocolate and lemon cream), two cookie cakes, an assortment of petit fours, and... four flavors of cotton candy! It was fun. Plus my house smelled like cotton candy for a week. I'm a walking sweet tooth, though, so I could never have picked just one cake- plus getting regular ones is so much cheaper than a tiered one- I swear, the second the bakers hear 'wedding' they triple the price!

    I'm all over the cheese cake, though. I hate cheesecake- but cheese? in a stack? YUM!

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  4. I'm not going to lie, I have cheese cake envy, those look amazing. I also like birthday cake, I think having a variety of cakes sounds like a fantastic idea for a wedding. Happy birthday!

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  5. Whenever The Day comes for me, I'm not doing a bakery cake - they bake them Monday, freeze them til Thursday, frost/decorate them on Friday, and serve them on Saturday. There is nothing grosser to me than frozen & thawed cake.

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  6. Want to hear something cool? We did both! (Kind of) Neither Nick nor I are huge fans of cake so we had a little cake to do the traditional feeding of each other and then had a cheesecake bar for the real dessert. It was so fun and definitely a hit among the guests!

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  7. Happy Birthday!! I've never even heard of a cheese cake, but I think it's so neat! Maybe have one of each?

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  8. 1. Happy Birthday :)
    2. CHEESE-CAKE is BRILLIANT! Sorry Jon...

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  9. Happy, happy birthday, B!! I hope you're indulging in some delicious cake today! And I totally want to hear more about this multiple-cakes-on-a-sideboard idea...I love it!:)

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  10. Happy Birthday Again! I guess we've been linked up on Twitter. My friend did the cheesecake. She live since S. Africa. Can't remember exactly why she decided to do it but I thought it was perfect!

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  11. Happy Birthday Love! I went to a wedding last year that had this elaborate cake that was just stunning. But it turned out it was just a drum and they had sheet cake in the back. I don't know why I thought it was so cool, but I did.

    Cake #4 is stunning. I wish I was planning a wedding :( So fun... Hope you have a great birthday!!!

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  12. Those figs. I die. Do both, if you can wrangle it. Your guests will love you. (And nothing wrong with an old fashioned fruit cake, although I understand it's a bit out of vogue nowadays.)

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  13. Happy birthday!
    And those cheese 'cakes' are a fantastic idea! I wish I had been clever enough to think of having one :)

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  14. CAKE! Those look delicious. And I love the idea of a "cake" made just of cheese. God, I love cheese. Hope you had a faaaabulous birthday!

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  15. Hi there! I stumbled over here by way of Freckled Italian, I think, and I just had to say that those cheese cakes look amazing. Are they garnished with figs?!

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  16. yay, welcome! YES. figs. figs and grapes are definitely part of the cheese experience :)

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