Fingerprints in the Fondant: Your Worst Wedding Cake Nightmares

By Jolie Kerr  |  June 11, 2015 | 7:00pm
In Depth

This week we asked you to tell us about your wedding cake disasters, and as expected, you did not disappoint!

Let’s kick this off with a cake mystery, from DaBaumDotCom:

TL/DR: Cake tasted fantastic, but came with a giant handprint in it, and then it all disappeared after our wedding.
We went to a bakery that had been on the Food Network to get our cake. I gave them some ideas of what I wanted for the colors and ribbon. I said I wanted something with flowers, too, and asked if they had any examples I could look at and choose. They told me that they would contact me further to figure out specifics on the decorations.
Well, they never did. And honestly, I didn’t really care – it was a cake, right? Whatever. Well it’s delivered to our reception *3 hours* after it was supposed to get there and there is a giant handprint in the icing. Like, right on the top. It looks like the cake was falling and they tried to catch it. The delivery person seemed flustered, and I wondered if that could have been why. I purchased a cake stand from the bakery that was supposed to be delivered with the cake, and she didn’t bring it. SO, there was nothing to put the cake on. We just put a cardboard circle under it and put it on a table nearby. I was so distracted by the fact it was late, it wasn’t sitting on anything and there was a *handprint* on the cake, that I didn’t even look at the decorations until later. The green was this puke/ pea soup green and bright orange flowers (way off of the original colors I gave them) and the flowers looked like they had been made from a playdough mold. The fondant was pressed into a mold and then the flowers were put on the cake like polka dots. It looked bizarre.
But it tasted SO good. And then, after hubby and I had a bite, they wisked the cake away from us, and served it to the guests. We had two tiers that weren’t eaten, and those were boxed up by my mother and mother in law … and then never seen again. To this day, I have no idea where our cake went. I hope someone enjoyed it.

For sheer weirdness of an entirely different variety, I had to include this story from stitty:

Not much of a disaster but we went to cut the cake and for some reason my mom got really impatient, so she yanked the knife out of my husband’s hand and just cut us two pieces, handed them to us and said “Here!”

Personal bias is at play with this one, because rob harvilla is my editor over at Adequate Man and I just really love that he commented on one of the PTQs:

At our wedding, my great aunt Dolly loved our cake so much she ate three pieces (which was unlike her), whereupon she decided to get up and dance (also unlike her), and next thing you know she needed to be hospitalized (she’s alive and well). They didn’t tell me or my wife until afterward; I remember seeing the ambulance pull up and thinking, “Huh, I guess they’re prepared for anything.”

Thanks to PendingMyMothersApproval, we have a new catchphrase in the form of “and you useless cunts know why” to add to our I Thee Dread lexicon. Congratulations, and you useless cunts know why! Please take your place next to the Marvins.

My aunt Bonnie’s second wedding was a small affair in Lake Tahoe. Her cake was from a chain grocery store, which, since it was located Tahoe, did regular wedding cake business and had a pretty large bakery section. My aunt’s fiancé, Steve, picked up the cake the morning of the wedding and came back to the cabin we were renting looking gray. He handed me the cake and told me not to let my Aunt see it. We opened the box and inside was what looked like a leftover baby shower cake that said in shaky writing “Congratudashions Bonne + Sleve.” You could also see where some pink piping had been scraped off and redone in white. Also, a plus sign? WTF??
My aunt of course walked in then, took one look and burst in to tears. I took it back to the bakery and went straight to the manager. I asked her to please redo the lettering, as it was embarrassingly bad. She told me she didn’t have time to do it that day because the orders were so back up. Latina Rage Activated:
Me: “Are you proud of this cake? Is this something you’d ever want to admit to doing?”
Bakery Manager: “Well, I didn’t do it.” “She did it. It’s her first day.”
Me: (very loudly) “Then why the fuck are you having her do wedding cakes if it’s her first day? It’s not her fault this is crap. It’s yours. And now you are blaming her? Shame on you.”
At this point doughy the store manager comes over and he tries to quiet me. I show him the cake and tell him how the fuckwit in charge of the bakery thinks it’s fine. He gives her a look like, oh great, not again. And she flat out tells him “I think it’s fine and I’m not having any of my people change it.” He looks at me defeated and impotent. I. Am. Dumbfounded.
I stomp over to the floral section, which is near the bakery, grab two dozen roses, and yell to the manager “I’m walking out of here with these, I’m not paying, and you useless cunts know why”.
I went back to the cabin, scraped off the lettering, and covered the top with roses. My aunt was very happy and cried again. And that’s how I first got into the wedding industry.

There were truly so many great stories this week — so many cake heroes out there! — which made picking a winner incredibly difficult, but in the end, peggyl brought it on home:

My late husband and his best man were in charge of transporting the liquor and the wedding cake to the hall before heading off to the church. They very carefully filled the trunk of the borrowed Lincoln with all the booze, then gingerly set the cake on top.
And slammed the lid.
After the ceremony I stood in the hall examining a wedding cake that was not the one which had been sitting on the kitchen table that morning. It turned out that the two of them had made an emergency stop at the first bakery they came to, and talked the pretty girl behind the counter into making an emergency cake.
The best man later married the girl from the bakery.
Contact the author at [email protected].

Image via Shutterstock.

 
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