Wednesday
May052010
The Princess Bridal Cakes
May 5, 2010 "Mawwiage!
Mawwiage is wot bwings us togevaaah...today."
Plus everyone's favorites: the missed marks!
As always, we start with the inspiration cake:
Oooh, aaahhh.And follow with what was actually received on The Big Day:
Ewww, awwww...
"Mawwiage: that bwessed awangement...."
"That dweem..."
"Wivin...a... dweem!"
"Stand your ground, men! Stand your ground!""So tweasure your wove."
And your airbrush.Skipping to the end...
The chocolate coating makes it go down easier.But you shouldn't go swimming after for at least a good hour.
Stephanie M., Anony M., Amanda C., Ann B., & Jennifer, are there Wrecks ahead? If there are, we'll all be fed!
Note from John: Um... just so we're all on the same page, the first cake in the pair is what the customer wanted and the second is what they got. Carry on then, carry on! (mmmm Fruit Newtons)
Reader Comments (226)
Why do I see wreck #3 and think: "yellow mold climbing the cake"? Maybe the bride on the topper is trying to keep the groom from stepping off into the fire swamp?
I see several possible instances where the original cake was done in fondant with gum paste flowers...sometimes brides ask for buttercream instead, and you have to be really REALLY good to achieve the one look using the other medium.
Looks to me that the brides to their inspirational pictures to amateur cake artists, so they can get a cheaper cake, and expected the same results. I'm sure the cake decorators did their best with what experience they have.
Hey, anybody else notice that the first inspiration cake is sitting on a beautiful silver cake stand, and the gold airbrushed wreck is sitting on a tarnished version of the same stand?
I LOVE YOU FOR YOUR PRINCESS BRIDE POST!
The first "wreck" is not actually so bad. No.. it's not EXACTLY like the inspiration cake, but it is pretty.
I perhaps love you both even more than I did simply because the abundance of Princess Bride references.
Mel said...
"After seeing the resulting cake I keep hearing that muted trombone go: "Wah wah wahhhhh..." '
******
OH, TOO PERFECT!!!! (Now I'LL be hearing that every time, too!)
There should be a sound clip attached to all of those "Not Quite There" results. wouldn't that be fun???
=^~.~^=
Those poor people...!!
Hope they didn't mind too much.
*SNORT!*
I know! Those cake decorators must not have been left-handed! What other explanation is there?
(LOVE Princess Bride!)
The airbrushed one would pass at a golden anniversary.
Let me just say that the judicious use of Princess Bride quotes just made my day. :)
Thanks Jen!
As a wedding planner, it truly hurts my heart to know those brides were disappointed to have received those wrecks instead of their inspiration...and double shame on those cake designers who said they could duplicate those cakes...not even close {I'm no cake baker but I bet I could do a better job - that's saying a lot!}
Jolyn | Edmonton Wedding Planner
Do you think they are using the same icing we are using? Inconceivable!
I love this post!
It's a combination of two of my favorites: _The Princess Bride_ and "missed mark" wedding cakes. Keep up the very good work :)
-Amy
http://stuffwriterslike.com
I saw the link via your facebook page, and this post is worth coming out of lurking to comment on. Princess Bride is by far the best movie EVER for one-liners. I just wonder 2 things: when the bride requested the cake, did the decorator say "As you wish"? And when the cake was delivered, did the decorator then say "EVERYBODY MOVE"?
These were painful.
Some of these really aren't horrible; definitely not what they're supposed to be but certainly not wrecks. Others, however.... eeeeek. Of course, considering that my mother got my wedding cake from Costco and the decorations from Wal-Mart (loooong story involving a wedding I had to plan from across the country -- bottom line, don't let someone else plan your wedding unless you're VERY pushy and VERY specific about what you want!), anything looks better to me than what I ended up with!
I kinda feel bad for the brides, but I'm guessing they're taking a picture from a magazine of a cake that probably costs $1000 and then expecting a less experienced baker to do it for cheaper. On the other hand, the bakers need to tell them if what they want is beyond their realm of expertise.
Great post today! It doesn't get better than the Princess Bride.
On a personal note, I did get in trouble for rhyming once. I couldn't understand why my Art teacher threatened to send me to the Principal's office if I didn't stop rhyming...with my friends...at our own table...while we were working productively...not being disruptive at all! I guess Mrs. M was actually Sicilian.
http://agirlinherkitchen.blogspot.com
That one cake looks like it's wrapped in toilet paper. Just saying. --Alison
This was my wedding. I showed the baker a gorgeous cake with basket-weave-looking icing and fresh flowers on it ("Oh, yes, I can do that! It will be so pretty!"), and I got a plain white cake with sad, grandmotherly silk flowers poked into it.
If I got one of those, I can guarantee someone would wish they were mostly dead. LOL
ROTFL!! Love the Princess Bride quotes. And perfect for the wrecks features. Yeek!
HAH!
The funniest thing about this post is that a friend and I were definitely messaging Princess Bride quote back and forth the other day!
Inconceivable!
I don't think it means what you think it does.
I think missed marks have to be my favourites!
WV: masmo. I think a masmo might just be a R.O.U.S. En Garde!
The first inspiration cake looks like the folds of a beautiful satin wedding dress. What they got looks like toilet paper draped around the cake.
I sometimes wonder if people who order cakes actually look at the photos of cakes the bakers have done in the past (not just some sample book). If there isn't anything that looks remotely like the quality you are looking for, DON'T ORDER!!! It's that simple. You get what you pay for.
Those are some serious wrecks. I am totally nerding out over the Princess Bride commentary, though.
Possibly my favorite movie of all time! Made this post all te better :)
Yay! Pairing my wreck with my favorite movie does take a bit of the sting out! :)
I'm actually the bride with that first cake in her wedding album. Unfortunately, we did pay close to a thousand for that "not too bad" thing. What you're not seeing (because my florist and photographer did their best to hide it) is the fact that the "fabric" detail is only tacked onto the front and the back end is actually sinking in on itself (in an air-conditioned room, no less!).
The bakery had multiple examples of their work (in photos and in person), and they all looked positively scrumptious. I think we just wound up with either the new guy or a sub.
Have fun storming the castle!
This combines one of my favorite websites, with my all-time favorite movie!
Very well done, and the comments had me in stitches. My kids asked me about five times if I was OK, and when I read the comments aloud we were all very amused.
Love that movie!!
This is why I am terrified of ordering a wedding cake!
AHHH, THE PRINCESS BRIDE...
MUCH LOVE for the PB and CW, ooh a fantastical combination.
I'm loving all the Princess Bride quotes. The cakes are sad and hideous but the quotes have made me happy.
I know somebody suffered humiliations galore when they delivered these cakes.
I agree with MegRN - combining my favorite blog with my favorite movie is just BLISS! Pure HEAVEN!!
"This is true love - you think this happens every day?"
Death (or horribly mangled wedding cakes) cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while. (while you scream at the wreckerator!) Love this blog and the Princess Bride references were "icing on the cake!"
Perhaps the decorators had six fingers on their right hand? That could make draping a bit inconceivable. ;)
~Val
Im sorry but these are ALL cake wrecks. This is a wedding cake people - no one wants a cake that kinda sorta is like their dream cake. If you cant do a decent draping tell them to go somewhere else. ugh. In a perfect world you really only get one wedding cake in a lifetime - that being the case these are serious fails. Its not like you can say last years birthday cake was bad but this years was so much better.
@Stephanie M.
That sucks. But I like to imagine the decorator saying this while they were making your cake:
"You truly love each other and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the story books say. And so I think no one in a century will suffer as greatly as you will."
oh my goodness! i would cry if those "wrecks" were my wedding cake!
that last one looks like it is made out of toasted marshmallow....think campfire =)
So, John, does it hurt when Jen gets credit for your outstanding work? You and Number1 are worthy subs for her and this was a GREAT post - thanks!
Yeah, yeah, a good hour.
Jen - I love you. If you lived closer we would definitely be friends. You make me laugh with all your inside jokes, that really, no one but me should know, and yet you say them all the time. Makes me smile. Thank you.
I think that first, drape-y cake isn't a wreck. It doesn't look as perfect as the picture, but it looks very good. The bride in that case picked a very fancy and difficult cake and got something which obviously the baker put a lot of effort and skill into, which actually did resemble her picture, and I think it's silly of her to be claiming it's a wreck.
Surely you're not lacking in real wrecks here? That one wasn't ugly or funny; it seems kind of nitpicky to call it a wreck.
On the other hand, that black and blue shiny cake is a nightmarish excrescence of sugar. Shudder. Whoever got that one must have had quite the expression on her face when she beheld it.
best. post. ever.
Hahaha! This post couldn't have been more awesome. The Princess Bride + wedding wrecks? Priceless.
@Stephanie M:
That was a thousand(ish) dollar cake? Wow, yeah, that's a wreck. It'd be excusable coming from someone who does cakes once in a while, and is a friend of the bride's aunt, so she only charged half her normal rate, and the bride just insisted... But from a very expensive place? Wow.
Also, favorite type of post + well-used Princess Bride quotes = one very happy reader. Thank you for making my morning!
The first comparison was the definitely the worst, but the rest weren't tooo awful. Anyway, have fun storming the castle!
"It doesn't get eaten by the wedding guests at this time."
Really, the biggest problem with the gold-airbrushing one is that there doesn't seem to be any gold airbrushing at all in the inspiration. The gold is in the background of the photo, behind the cake. Which makes me the wreckorator looked at the photo, threw it away, and went off to do the cake. And then when they were almost done, they thought, "Wasn't there some gold on this?"
My wv is "hateds". I have nothing to add to that. Except I was hoping it would be "blave".
dmvgirl's "to the pain" comment tops them all.
My thought on looking at the cake with the two plastic characters ?
"I would jump of this horrible gooey thing too, buddy !"
Thank you for the laugh, Jen :)
- Naomi
WV : ostedi
On Wednesday, you get Weddings Wrecks, on Ostedi, you get Divorce Wrecks :D
Bow down to the cakes of slime, the cakes of filth, the cakes of PUUUtrescence!
I second the motion to hunt down those bakers and count how many fingers they have on their left hands.
-Liz in Seattle