Posts Tagged: cake
The Origins of the Wedding Cake
Every wonder why wedding cake is a tradition? Here’s a fun lecture I did at Tufts University on The Origins of the Wedding Cake and in my own wedding dress to boot! The origins is just a small part in my full lecture of “The Sexy and Sexist Layers of the Wedding Cake” for the Women’s Center 2nd Annual Symposium.
10 Alternatives to the Superstitious Baby-Making Wedding Cake
Wedding cake is not just dessert! It’s a tradition because cooked inside it is a lot of superstition. Those five layers of fondant are nothing more than a towering talisman trying to knock the bride up. Don’t believe me? Well, a cake is nothing more than wheat, sugar, water and eggs, which are all symbols for fertility. Cook them together, eat it and people thought it would literally put a bun in the oven. But today, despite lots of people going after Planned Parenthood in a modern day witch hunt, there are many women and couples, who don’t actually ever want to have kids. So instead of serving wedding cake and pushing a baby-making agenda they don’t want, here are 10 dessert alternatives that don’t come with the same sticky, messy symbolism(though feel free to pick one type of dessert if you’re not interested in a dessert bar).
10 Wedding Traditions Worth Skipping
If you’re looking for some real advice as to what type of wedding traditions you should skip, look no further. Other lists give fluffy advice and are usually limited to things you buy. This top 10 list gives you wedding traditions that are ripe with unfair conditions like sexism or consumerism which can either be thrown out like a garter or bouquet (#8 & #9) or modernized so it treats everyone a little bit better.
Is Cutting The Cake A Gross Or Delicious Display of PDA?
Some find the entire pomp and circumstance of the cake cutting ceremony as sugarcoated narcissism. They assume no guest wants to witness a gross display of PDA. Is it possible they are right? It is, after all, becoming less and less popular – perhaps for that reason. The tradition is indeed a form of entertainment, which in some circles is seen as part of the indulgent, luxury-wedding syndrome that is both ostentatious and vain.
The act of feeding a spouse wedding cake symbolizes your promise to nurture and care for them. When it’s done equally, it’s a selfless act making it also a very parental act. Freud would have a field day with this because it is also a sexual act, you’re entering someone’s intimate space and putting sexual food in open orifices. If that idea makes the ritual seem weird, it’s because it is; but don’t worry, if you don’t like being the center of attention, skip the cake and its cost or take some sheet cake and feed each other privately.
Me though, I like cake and I enjoy a good cake in the face at somebody else’s expense. I loved the photos of my own parents’ wedding of my mom smushing cake in my dad’s face. When he tried to do the same, in a move of comical genius she pushed his own cake-filled hand into his own face. I desperately wanted to repeat this as a new personal tradition, but didn’t have the hutzpah. Besides cake in the face indicates to the guests it is time for dessert.