Cake is always a good idea

After 13 years of planning and executing weddings and events, I’ve seen and experienced quite a lot of interesting moments. And a lot of those moments have led me to adjust how I do business. You might be staring at the photo above and wondering, how on earth did she end up with cake on her dress? I’m so glad you asked!

In the fall of 2017, I was coordinating a wedding in Rome, Georgia. The sweet couple was hosting the reception in a tent next to a beautiful lake on a family friend’s property. This particular wedding had a lot of details to set up, so I left my assistant at the reception tent to continue setup while I ran the ceremony at a chapel nearby. I continuously checked on my assistant asking how things were coming along, and she kept mentioning how hot it was under the tent. September in Georgia can still feel like summer, so I wasn’t entirely surprised. She said the combination of the lake and the tent being set up the day before and the heat led to it being really muggy under the tent.

I did not think too much more about it until I arrived at the reception along with the couple and the wedding party following the ceremony. At that point, my assistant approached me with a concerned look. The wedding cake and groom’s cake were displayed under the tent – the incredibly humid tent. I will let you do the math as to what happens to a three-tier wedding cake covered in buttercream when it is put in an environment with extreme heat and humidity. It had started to lean – possibly more than the Tower of Pisa.

If this cake was going to have any chance of surviving, I knew it needed to be cut sooner rather than later. So with the couple’s approval, we adjusted the cake cutting to just after the special dances. All good, right? Well, not quite. The caterer for this wedding was a local restaurant and informed me that day they were not prepared to cut the cake. While I have always had a firm stance that I do not cut cakes, in the moment, I also do what is necessary to make my client’s wedding day happen. I know there is a science to cutting cakes and not one I am well-versed in. I decided I did not want to cut the cake in front of the guests for fear this was going to be a major disaster. I also didn’t trust that I would be able to carry the leaning Tower of Pisa three-tier cake to the kitchen. So I decided I would separate the layers and carry them individually.

Using the cake knife and server the bride found on Etsy, my assistant and I successfully removed the top tier and were working on the second. My assistant pointed out that the cake server had bent under the weight of the top tier and was almost flat, providing us no leverage for the removal of the second tier. I decided to adjust the server so it was vent at the handle to provide us with leverage…

And that’s how I ended up with cake boob. When I bent the handle, the serving portion broke off and landed directly on me, covering me in buttercream and cake crumbs, all within plain sight of the couple and their guests. I had to laugh in the moment because what else can you do in a situation like this? We managed to get the final two tiers in the kitchen and cut them for the guests.

So how did I end up in a situation like this? One where the couple used a friend who had just started baking cakes to make their wedding cake and a catering team that wouldn’t cut the cake? I had not yet set guidelines for the vendors that I was willing to work with. This wedding taught me that I needed to approve the vendors my clients are working with. It doesn’t mean I won’t work with new vendors, but I do want to take the time to vet each vendor and make sure they are experienced and prepared to execute a wedding with me and my team. There is now a clause in our contract at Emily Jordan Events that states we must approve of the client’s vendor list. And while this wedding was not the only time I have been faced with a tough vendor situation, this had two that created a memorable moment that I did not soon want to repeat.

xo

Jordan