Wedding Day...hope for perfection, plan for trauma.

I have heard it said that every wedding has a drama. I spent several days last week baking a cake for 250 guests at an outdoor wedding. Of course a "rain plan" was in place, but the forecast was "scattered brief showers" in late afternoon with a warm evening.  It was accurate!

     

For the past week, this was the scene in my kitchen. The repeated hum of the mixer as my single oven heated was a memory from days gone by.  I agreed to make a wedding cake, an activity not indulged in many years.  I enjoyed the baking and planning with much trepidation on transporting the confection to the venue.  We anxiously watched the weather forecasts hoping for a cool dry afternoon and evening.

 I baked, and I baked some more.  My oven did not accommodate the sixteen inch round pans. The guard in the back of the racks could not be turned and it blocked the pan from going all the way into the oven. I had to turn a cooling rack upside down and set the pan on the elevating pins to clear the back guard.  It was a little precarious with the heavy batter filled pan (red batter no less).  The large layers must be quick frozen in order handle for decorating.  I no longer have my collection of extra refrigerators and freezers. Luckily Dancin' Girl has an extra freezer and refrigerator in her garage just around the corner.  We rearranged the shelves of the freezer and I wrapped the cooled layers, then took them over to her house.

Cakes are baked and iced

I whipped up enough icing to cover an elephant, or so it would seem.  About that time I began to refer to the concoction as "the beast", somewhat reminiscent of the armadillo groom's cake in the movie "Steel Magnolias". This was however the bridal cake and included a calming layer of rich white cake over each round of red velvet.

The wedding day arrived.  I had visited the site earlier in the week and the hilly winding roads would require that each tier be boxed and transported on a flat surface for assembly on the cake table.  Ol' Abner stepped up and cut heavy corregated cardboard to shape large flat boxes for the cake to travel smoothly.  They all arrived in perfect shape!  As I set the boxes on the table I realized there were few places on the surface that didn't have a mystery lump.  A level smooth surface is critical for successful display of a large wedding cake.  Furthermore, the table was very wobbly, the assembled cake would be very heavy.  My heart sank, but I set to work attempting to find a smooth place as the table tilted under the weight of the cake.  Meanwhile the photographer explained that the photos would be staged hopefully timed to show the setting sun through the trees as the cake was cut. A lovely plan that would require perfect timing and positioning of the cake.  The "table" was an old cable spool with a circle of lumps (bolt positions) around the center, forcing the cake on it's 18" plate to rest near the edge.  

The cake tiers had each been perfectly level...yes, I use the carpenter's tool to check, on my kitchen table. When assembled, it exhibited a slight tilt, but felt sturdy when I tested it.  Rain clouds were gathering and a gentle breeze was becoming stronger.  Cheerleader A and her mom were watching and offering to help as I stacked the beast in place.  The plan was to have the groom's cake and a tower of decorated cookies on the other side of the table.  One of the helpers went inside and brought back a lovely crystal plate to hold the chocolate cheesecake for serving and I was convinced my work was done.

We left the venue to change to our wedding appropriate clothing and Cheer A and her mom agreed to stand guard, with umbrella in hand, against hummingbirds and racing children.  

The call came as I was slipping on my non-athletic shoes.  One of the co-hostesses from the bridal shower was advising me that the cake had fallen and they had managed to catch it, but the tiers were stacked all around the table,  I assured her that I had tools to repair it and would return shortly.  The wedding hour was approaching and it was raining at son's house, only a short distance away.  The old song from the sixties, 

MacArthur Park, kept running through my mind...at least the line about someone leaving a cake out in the rain.  We hurried back through rain puddles along the road.  The heavy butter cream was sturdy, but not exactly waterproof.  Luckily Cheer A's mom had stood holding umbrellas over the cakes to protect them from the downpour.  What loving friends this bride has.  I was touched.  No matter how I adjusted the dowel supports on the cake and reset the center stakes, the cake, when assembled, sloped.  The table just would not stay level under the weight and I had no way to shore it up.  It was a little muddy by then so it may have been sinking into the mud. Plan B had to go into action.

We settled the bottom two tiers under a flower separator and stacked the centerpiece for the table on top, with the upper tiers displayed to the side.  It appeared momentarily stable and Cheer Mom continued her vigil.  It was about twenty minutes after the planned start of the wedding and Ol' Abner was urging me to come and sit.

Cheer Mom shows a little angle to me

We sat just as the bride's mother was being escorted to her seat.  Perfect timing!  The bride was absolutely gorgeous and her father's voice was breaking as he agreed to give her away.  He did offer a stern admonition to the groom before he offered his precious daughter to him! We laughed.

After the ceremony, photos were taken in a little meadow just beyond the seating area. We returned to the tables set up for the reception and I looked up to see the cake tilting again at a rather precarious angle. Cheer Mom beat me to the table and managed to catch the top two tiers as they toppled.  I grabbed food service gloves and manhandled them safely to the tabletop one more time.  At that point I decided the anniversary tier could be moved to it's box under the table to be frozen later in the evening. The eight inch tier became the top and the twelve and ten inch tiers served as the base.  The sixteen and fourteen inch sloping layers remained under the centerpiece. When it was time for the cutting of the cake, the able photographer provided lighting to make up for the sun already down.  The bride and groom offered up the ceremonial bite of cake to one another and the party began in ernest.  It was a joyful celebration for most.

I say "most", but the trauma few knew was for the mother of the bride. Minutes before the ceremony, she took a fall in her own house and had a terrible knot on her forehead.  Her hairstyle had to be rearranged to cover the forming bruise, no doubt to be a massive blackeye. She made the rounds diligently as the warm perfect hostess, but I know she was suffering through a nagging headache.  I was saddened that this much anticipated and planned event was ruined for her by the anger of the pain.

Knowing this, my dilemma of an ever-toppling cake seemed minor.  Did I mention that the mother of the bride had shared a story a few years ago of her wedding.  Her cake fell over!

Come September

I can remember hearing adults refer to things that would happen when the kids returned to school as "Come September".  My mother would say "come September we'll get together for our morning coffee", or my dad would tell a customer on the phone "come September I'll be in your area at least once a week".  I never quite understood the magical month when school resumed as a gateway for all those adult activities; until I became an adult.  Those days of pre-school month frenzy are a distant memory now for this old "adult", but I did finally understand how life entered a new cycle with the beginning of each school year.  In retirement, our lives are no longer tied to the school year. This year, we planned a spring trip to be completed before the end of school, but it was more a recognition of hot summer weather's approach than the deluge of kids loosed on humanity. I had many projects planned and our return from that spring trip was to be my gateway to busy times.  I had a number of sewing projects, a revision of the usage for two of our bedrooms, establishment of a consistent exercise routine, all in preparation for those cooler autumn days.  Several weekend excursions were planned and of course the usual preventive care visits with physicians, dentists and vision specialists would be completed before fall. Have I mentioned that I lost my summer.  Well at least my functional self was lost all summer.  A fractured leg and mangled toes will hamper mobility severely!  Ok, that's all history now and the reference to "come September" has arrived like a giant looming snowball. Three quilts must be completed before year's end, assistance with making a fourth one with an ambitious fellow for his mother. All those medical visits were postponed in lieu of more urgent foot repair, physical therapy and stretching conditioning practice. 

In March, I agreed to make my first wedding cake in roughly fifteen years..."come September"! Whaaaat was I thinking? I'm thinking now! This simple cake embellished with fresh flowers will consist of nine two-layer tiers, red velvet and white cake tiers.  The grooms cake (of course, we must have a groom's cake) will be chocolate cheesecake.  It will be an outdoor wedding, garden theme, since the weather will be cooler "come September".  It was 100 degrees in our little town today, the wedding is five days away.  The garden setting is smack in the middle of a hill-country working farm.  A lovely live-oak grotto will provide scant shade (if you know about live oaks, you understand) for the flower covered arched alter.  The dinner reception and dance will take place just behind the seating area where fairy lights will be strung around the perimeter.  I think it will be beautiful and I look forward to seeing this lovely girl marry the fun quirky young man that stole her heart. Preparation of the cake is NOT what concerns me, getting the beast to the venue (did I just call it a "beast"?) is my worry.  Hill country rural roads are steeply sloped and winding.  I no longer have my van with the level floor for transporting, nor do I own the array of boxing supplies and large sturdy plates that support a cake to feed 250 people.  I cannot stake the tiers together for travel and anticipate their arrival without a bit of lean or even side tilting.  The entire thing will need to be assembled with dowels and stakes on site.  Weather is predicted to be in the mid eighties...the same as the past weekend...we had two days in the high nineties, and it's going up.  I am meeting the florist prior to the service for set-up.  I gingerly expressed slight concern about flying things that might be attracted to a sugary confection sunning in open air.  I offered a canopy and some netting to put over it as protection, but no takers.  I pray that we don't find ourselves hosting a hummingbird convention...fresh colorful flowers and a huge mountain of sugary fluff...can anyone see where this could go?  Furthermore, I am a guest for this (dress code-semi formal) affair. Son's house is closer to the site than our home, so I will complete my task and then attempt to make my (probably sweaty) self presentable for the festivities.  Oh and there is that issue of my lame foot.  It is still inhospitable to a closed toe shoe, and I am sporting three toenails that look like they belong to the homeless lady under the bridge.  I would beg help from Dancing Girl, but "come September, she will be in her long planned meeting in Los Angeles. I am on my own, friends...to get this cake in place, make myself worthy of attending the fun times, then arrive on time.