Wednesday, February 11, 2009

That Wedding: Bridesmaid Cake Pull

Throughout my planning process I kept hearing of this thing called a cake pull. From what I understood it was a Southern wedding tradition, and it happened at the bridal shower. Charms were buried inside of a cake and pulled out by a ribbon, with each charm corresponding to a fortune. I loved this idea, but I wasn't having a bridal shower where all my favorite ladies would be present.

My solution to this dilemma was to incorporate the tradition into the wedding day! Sounds like a great idea right? Well it was in theory, but it didn't quite work out as well as I would have hoped.

Since we had a cake buffet (lots of yummy cake pictures to come!), I simply asked the catering staff to stuff my charms directly into the cake right before the event was to happen. I'm sure they were all standing around in the back talking about the crazy bride (that is the kind of thing I did when I used to cater weddings).



I called each of my bridesmaids forward and told them to pull on a ribbon of their choice.



I held in my hand 8 slips of paper with "fortunes" written on them.



When enough of the cake was wiped off of the charm to be able to see what it was, I handed the corresponding fortune to each girl and had them read it out loud.



Part of me still believes that this could have been really awesome (and as an amateur folklore buff I'm fascinated by the myriad of cultural wedding traditions to be found), but my execution wasn't quite what it should have been. I made up the fortunes myself, since all the fortunes I could find online were really cheesy, but like most of my wedding projects I did it at 3 am the week of the wedding and my fortunes just weren't funny enough.



BM Nay looks at me and says "That Bride, why in the world are we doing this?"



I don't know if I intended for the majority of the guests to gather around and watch this unfold, but that's what happened.



BM Lova was married just three months before me, and I was really hoping she would get the fortune about having lots of babies, but that didn't happen.



I bought the charms from Swedenberg's Gold Chest Jewelers on eBay. I wanted something inexpensive because I knew that most of the girls would lose or throw their charms away that night and the whole set of 9 from this seller was only $15.



As with all of my crazy wedding decisions, my bridesmaids were good sports and played along with smiles on their faces. I would be very surprised if I ever saw this practice repeated again, I don't think anyone would rate it a big success.



Fate was smiling upon me at the end of the Cake Pull, when the second youngest bridesmaid pulled the baby in a high chair charm, with a fortune that stated "You will be blessed with children. Lots of them."

To which her mom cried out "Not anytime soon I hope!"



Good thing I have funny relatives who are always ready with a good joke to get everyone laughing. My advice to other brides who have ever considered doing this would be to have the funniest person you know write these out for you.



Kelli Nicole I wish you could have been a bridesmaid in a pretty black dress, but I needed you there to take my pictures!

Previously:

That Wedding: Bridesmaid Party!
That Wedding: Whole Foods (Rehearsal-ish) Luncheon
That Wedding: Harbor Sailing
That Wedding: Putting My Face On
That Wedding: The Gift Exchange
That Wedding: Dressing That Bride
That Wedding: Bridal Details
That Wedding: The First Look
That Wedding: Into The Woods
That Wedding: Woodsy Family Portraits
That Wedding: To Wed! To Wed!
That Wedding: Showered With Love, Coins, and Hugs
That Wedding: Group Shots With a Little Spice
That Wedding: Those Groomsmen
That Wedding: The Whole Party
That Wedding: Me and My Maids (+Manmaid)
That Wedding: Ring Ceremony Prep
That Wedding: The Ring Ceremony
That Wedding: Let Us Whet Your Appetite
That Wedding: Photobooth
That Wedding: We Dance
That Wedding: Dining Details

That Wedding: Toasting

3 comments:

Kaitlyn said...

I didn't get a chance to comment on your toasts post, but I watched each video and I love that post!

This is a cute idea, and judging by those smiles I doubt it went all that bad :)

Shaylene Andersen said...

I would like you to know that I still have my charm on my keychain. I also remember it saying something about buying a wedding dress soon, and thinking that wasn't very likely:)

Cate Subrosa said...

I love their black birdcages. So classy.