Bridal Tears
April 6, 2016 It's time again to see why the brides are crying - or, as I like to call it, "Reminders that your day could always be worse."
Yep, it's everyone's favorite, "What They Ordered vs What They Got!"
Kimberly P. asked her baker for this scrolly beauty, only in red and with icing flowers instead of real ones:
Instead, she got...this:
Or, as I like to call it, "The Dance of the Earth Worms. With Fresh Beets."
Katie Leigh asked for this classic black and white number:
But ended up with all sixes and sevens*: 
(*That's a little British slang for you English folk. You're welcome, guv'na!)
Olivia G. wanted her cake to be black and white all over, too, in this pretty damask pattern:
And in case you were wondering if it's possible to pipe a damask pattern by hand...
It's not.
(I literally stared at these two photos for five minutes, trying to figure out where those shapes came from. I'm still at a loss. Do you think they flashed the pink picture at the baker for thirty seconds, and then told her to go recreate it from memory?)
Let's take a break from all that black and white and take a walk on the wild side:
Awesome, right? Mary M. ordered this fun mad hatter style for her wedding.
Unfortunately, I suspect what she GOT just made her mad-as-a-hatter
Only not in the "Wheedle-a-doo! Lemme dip my watch in my tea!" kind of mad. More like the, "Lemme go, so I can whoop someone's ASCOT," kind of mad. I guess this might pass for a three-year-old's birthday, but c'mon: a wedding?
(Side tangent: Don't you wish people would yell ridiculous things like "Wheedle-a-doo!" when they're ticked off? That would be sooo cool. If anything would make me watch reality TV, it'd be Gordan Ramsey yelling, "Boopin' Flibberty Gibbets, you Stronkin' Honk-Nobbit!" Right? Right?? I can't be the only one.)
This next couple wanted something simple and understated for their wedding, so they ordered this:
What they got, however, reduced our poor blushing bride to tears - and I'm pretty sure the groom is preparing to vent some frustration, going by the way he's brandishing that serving knife:
Holy plastic meltdown, Batman! Swans and cherubs and pillars, oh my! Looks like the only thing this couple and their baker had in common was they both ended up seeing red. Yeesh.
And finally, it's time to get back in black (and white) with this sweet little creation Kelly L. ordered for her big day:
Now, as pretty as this is, there's nothing terribly complicated here, so I can see why Kelly thought her baker could manage it.
[sighing]
[shaking head]
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly....
Er....Is your cake erupting?
Oh! That's just the topper at an odd angle. Sorry. Anyway, that cake is just...sad. Really, I can't think of any other word for it. Like it's shuffling dejectedly down the sidewalk and sighing a lot, and you just want to give it a hug. Or throw a towel over it.
Thanks again to all of today's brides for letting us laugh along with them - assuming, of course, that you're laughing by now, ladies. If not, then thanks for letting us gasp in horror and yell things like "Doofin' FINKEL Shmirtz!!" at the screen.
(Why, yes, I have started watching Phineas and Ferb recently. Why do you ask?)
*****
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Reader Comments (61)
amanda*p - "Flibberty Gibbets" means "scatter-brained" or "airhead", and chances are you first heard it used in the delightfully weird, very Tim Burtonish, highly under-rated Tom Hanks movie, "Joe Versus the Volcano".
@BADKarma: My...that was quite a reaction, but you are correct -- the antidote to laughing and crying is a whole tub of cream cheese frosting. Glad you're OK! :-)
Oh man. The simple white/red turned pillared monstrosity reminds me of my cake - was supposed to be plain white with a cascade of butterflies. Instead, it looked remarkably like that one, only with white roses and swags, with the butterflies stuck all over the cake at random. I'd send it in, but no one else realized it was a horrible interpretation, and I wasn't going to darken anyone's day by complaining. I never asked my mom (who did the ordering) just wtf happened there.
One of these is not like the other. Oh wait - NONE of these are like they are supposed to be!
Oh man were these done by friends or professionals? I cannot imagine why on earth that one cake with roses turned into some strange three tiered thing. I would be chasing that baker for sure lol.
@ Midnight Writer--Usually when I see a "wall of words" I pass by it, but you had me hooked right away. Well done, indeed!
And now that I review the post I'm about to put up, I've done the "wall of words" bit. Apologies, but here goes...
On the last cake, I just have to reiterate what everyone else said about leveling a cake. While I take this to mean making sure the top is level, folks may also be meaning to "square up" the sides. You know, make it look like an old-fashioned hat box. BTW, I'm saying that like it is easy to do, but I find it to be challenging as I keep fussing to try to make it perfect. The thing that we did in school just floored me. We trimmed each layer in a tier, top and bottom (to make them flat, and to remove the brown). Then we put the filling between the layers (using Swiss Meringue Buttercream), and then we refrigerated it. Then we took each chilled tier, put it on the rotating stand and carved the sides with a serrated knife as perfectly cylindrical as possible, thus removing the brown from the outer edges. Then, the crumb coat (really necessary because you cut the brown off...LOL), refrigeration, and the final frosting (and fondant if that's what you want). I gotta tell you, when you cut into one of those beauties, they look SO elegant!
But with that last cake, uneven top, sloping sides--sad, sad, sad, and droopy looking. Now the string work is certainly challenging to make it looks as effortless as the model cake, but if the baker had squared up and leveled his/her cake, it would have looked OK. Also, I'm wondering if the bride wanted a WHITE cake. Sigh. If she did want buttercream, Swiss Meringue Buttercream looks much whiter than American buttercream.
Now that I talked about the difficult things, I checked into how to do the damask pattern on the third "what the bride ordered". Well, obviously it is a stencil, and it doesn't look to difficult to do with the right materials and a 10-minute video instruction! [Check into Chef Alan Tetreault of Global Sugar Art ... Love his videos, and I find his techniques approachable and his voice relaxing (LOL). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B_qnoedGqg&nohtml5=False (and no, I'm not a shill for him...LOL)]
@Mary Kay: Yup, that sure is a "wall of words"....it's a curse I bear -- waaaaaay too much verbiage at times, like the narrative just keeps on going...like that Bunny....which is why it's posted late...it takes up space at the end, when things are quieter, rather than in the beginning or middle...but I'm glad you stayed, and glad you enjoyed it.....
@ The Midnight Writer: Was it wrong that I tried to read your entire post in the voice of Werner Herzog? (And then emitted a deep groan at the end?)
@JMixx: Absolutely not.... :-)
Hey, I know where the mis-shapes on the damask-inspired cake came from. They're part of a group of templates made by Wilton...I bought them about 30 years ago. I always wondered what the 4 half-circles might be used for; and now I'm wondering even more. So MANY fails there.
I love looking at wedding wrecks, so after I laughed through today's classic wrecks, I came here.
The top tier of the dam*asked wreck - oh, my. Now I can't get "Every Sperm is Sacred" out of my head!