Last Saturday, after several days of baking, assembling and icing a wedding cake, we finally attended the reception of the couple the cake was for.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening which began when we arrived an hour early so that I could set up the cake table and put the finishing touches on it.
I'm happy to report that all those prayers y'all were praying for me and that cake were answered...the cake arrived intact and was set up and decorated in no time flat, and I remained relatively stress-free throughout the whole ordeal.
Even with a handful of small boys buzzing like bees around me during the process.
In fact, I was so relaxed that I went around and took photos of the reception hall. It was a gorgeous place for a wedding reception.
The hall was located in the middle of a business park of all places, and by day is the 'classroom' for a realty training school. The bride's family had an 'in' and were able to secure the facility for a song. It was absolutely
perfect for a reception.
Folks began arriving before too long.
Here, Judah, tie askew, was trying to work up the courage to go tell the bride that she looked "bootifow".
There was much dancing.
The dollar dance raised a lot of cash for the young couple's honeymoon.
Here the bride dances with her young brother-in-laws.
And the groom with his sisters.
And, of course, the bride and groom.
Judah, upon realizing that all the kids his size were out on the dance floor, spent most of his time there.
Meanwhile, back at the tables, Jericho and the grooms youngest brothers (who have known each other since their days together in the church nursery) unwrapped the gifts that had been placed at each setting at their table, and learned that the "Thank You for Celebrating With Us" gifts were little photo albums.
Seeing dozens of these throughout the hall at unattended place settings, they set out on a search for a particularly decorated kind that they felt were the 'coolest'.
Here was their collection when we finally realized what they were up to
Jeff chided them for starting such a 'manly' collection as gold and silver-plated photo albums, and, properly chagrined, they finally stopped opening the gifts and instead went out to dance.
Well, except for Jericho.
Which is crazy, because the boy's got skillz where dance moves are concerned...he just never breaks them out in public.
Every time I'd look for Judah he was either on the dance floor, or hanging with the family of the groom.
The girls in that family are the same ones who work in the Little Tots class on Sunday mornings, and he adores them.
Even if he did tell them at one point during the evening, "I won't mawwy you, but I wiwh dance wif you."
What cracked me up, was loading the pictures onto my computer the next morning and finding the funny photos like this one
That little kid sitting at
their table was TOTALLY hopped up on Hawaiian Punch and wedding mints.
Wait, he looks kind of familiar somehow...
The dinner was delicious. The bride's family are Italian, and brought in some of the best lasagna ever.
In spite of our careful monitoring of foods and 'gredients (as Judah says), something Judah managed to eat that evening had coconut in it.
And he began to get itchy red ears and cheeks, gearing up for a pretty good outbreak of hives.
Thankfully I had some Benedryl in my purse, and giving that to him right away helped to nip that in the bud.
Oy.
It didn't stop him for long, though. As soon as he was feeling less itchy, he was right back out on the dance floor playing with his 'fwends'.
And, when he returned to the table for some water, taking photos with us.
Finally, it was time to cut the cake.
Here are the bride and groom and their cake.
And here they are trying to cut through the very tough (storebought) fondant icing.
Here they are about to feed each other the cake
And then after they'd shoved the cake into each other's faces
Here is what the cake looked like inside. You would not believe how much a 14 inch layer cake weighs, fully decorated and with fondant icing...easily 20 pounds.
That represents a lot of sugar, y'all.
Which was probably why Judah spent so much time dancing. And running around and around the big wall separating the hall from the kitchen behind it.
And busting out old-school breakdancing moves.
I did have a pretty embarrassing moment pertaining to that cake. Aside from the bride and groom having a tough time cutting through it, that is.
See that purple fondant 'ribbon' hanging off the cake?
SOOO not supposed to do that.
That's what I get for running to WalMart the evening before the reception to buy pre-made fondant in a vain effort to save myself a step and hopefully get to bed at a decent hour.
I don't recommend
that shortcut, ever.
Because even with a husband willing to knead the stuff into chewed-gum consistency, it still doesn't handle like homemade fondant. It doesn't roll out right. Homemade sort of snugs to the cake like spandex, but this stuff was way too stiff and no matter how much smoothing I did wouldn't 'blend' seamlessly together around the sides of the cakes like it was supposed to. It didn't taste all that great, either.
One of the bride's little boy cousins was hovering around while I was cutting the cake, and saw the purple ribbon of 'frosting' and began tugging on it, apparently thinking he had 'dibs' on it.
It very nearly caused a fiasco, as that layer of the cake began to slide in the direction of his tugging.
His parents were appalled and apologized profusely.
I told them not to worry, because I have a little boy JUST LIKE theirs, and if their son hadn't done that, Judah surely would have, lol.
In spite of the problematic fondant, I was very pleased with how the cake looked at tasted.
And, wonder of wonders, in spite of my hurried preparations the day of the reception, my hair style even stayed put all evening long! (How often does
that happen?)
For me, this was an instance of 'having my cake and eating it too!'
