Cake Toppers and Following Your Instincts

Meeting with engaged couples for so many years, I have  a window into the journey of wedding planning that allows me to pick up on certain things. For some, the planning types, its easy... they know what they want and go about lining up vendors to provide it.  For the rest, its huge and overwhelming and coming up with one place to start can seem impossible. Its for that second group that all the wedding publications and websites have been created.  And what a life saver they are. 

I was married in 2002, and the only thing really open to me were a few publications. Each one with their own lists.  I found it really hard to find a wedding cake vendor.  I wasn't making cakes at the time, and had no idea where to start.  It took a lot for me to find the person that ultimately made my lovely, and simple cake. Now, each publication, each site has checklists, and budget forms meant to help the newly engaged navigate the winding path of wedding planning.  And in trying to be helpful, they too can be overwhelming. 

I liken it to a recipe for pie dough.  The writer wants success from each person that tries the recipe.  To achieve this, they put in lots of expressive detail, butter COLD, water ICED, PEA sizes of butter pieces....  details they intend to help the home cook to success, but in the end, the specificity feels like demands and the cook is intimidated and just gives up.    They fail to explain the whys of it all, and so it all feels like a chore.

The happiness of your life together as a married couple will not be lessened if you don't have silver plated monogrammed cake cutting instruments that you may never use again. 

Same things with the lists... I've had bride after bride lately asking about wedding cake toppers because they read it on a list of must haves, along with silver cake cutters, special display pedestals, and all manner of luxurious details that may or may not have any relevance to a couple's day.   

Now, if your topper was handed down from your grandparents, I'm happy to find a way to incorporate it into the cake design, and have done this more than once.  But when you decide to work with a cake artist, often those plastic add-ons clash with the design of the cake and distract from the focal point.

Cake toppers are from another era, when a couple would pick a cake from a book at the local bakery.  When selecting number 38, there was nothing about this design that reflected them and so a topper was a bit of a personalized touch, something to help make this cake their own, and different from the 100's of other weddings Number 38 graced.   

Today, when making the choice to work with a custom wedding cake designer, every detail about the cake reflects the couple, their aesthetic, and their relationship. A well designed wedding cake pulls together the other aesthetic choices from the wedding and becomes art, a center piece that ties the event together.

So, what I want to do is give permission to all the brides and grooms to take in and then promptly ignore ALL the well meaning advice. Those lists and forms can be incredibly helpful, but not if you're feeling captive to them. Think of them as a bunch of things to consider, as questions to you and not demands. When one rings important, then you pursue it. If it doesn't, you have my permission to promptly ignore it. The happiness of your life together as a married couple will not be lessened if you don't have silver plated monogrammed cake cutting instruments that you may never use again. 

Following tradition just because its been done is meaningless. Follow those that hold meaning for you, ignore the rest. (Every wedding I went to when I was a child played Celebration and The Chicken Dance.  Is that what you want?)  What you'll end up with is a wedding that is truly your own, a highly personal experience that may at times shock some of your guests, but will instead give them their own permission to follow their heart when it comes to following the beaten path.