Let them eat cake!

And we will. After this past weekend, we now have a pretty and delicious cake to serve to our wedding guests as well as an officiant to make it a wedding and not just a really expensive party.

The Officiant
As his closing to all of his emails, our officiant writes “All Ways, Rev Stuart”. The “All Ways” refers to his open-mindedness and willingness to perform pretty much any type of ceremony. Rev Stuart is his name and marrying peeps is his game. Don’t worry, I made up that line; it’s not part of his shtick. Upon meeting him, both Hal and I got a good feeling about him instantly. The Rev is down to earth, all about the love and the commitment of marriage, and easy to talk to. He’s also a jazz musician and I have this feeling he may carry around a comedy routine tucked in his back pocket just in case. In case of what? Who knows but he strikes me as the type who’s ready to entertain at a moment’s notice. He brought to the table some unique ideas that we could integrate into the ceremony to make it special and our own, which I appreciated. As we were leaving, I jokingly commented that now that we have an officiant, Hal has to marry me. The Rev laughed and said, “You bet he will if I have anything to say about it!” I think I like the Rev more and more.

The Cake
Initially, we considered going with something more exotic and by exotic I mean red velvet cake or something with chocolate mousse. We had the opportunity to try out three different cakes and fillings and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the yellow cake with strawberries, vanilla custard and butter cream was delicious. It’s considered a “basic” cake but why mess with a good thing. Then we had the design to consider. I asked for Hal's opinion on the cake design and even though he feigns disinterest, he certainly knows what he likes and doesn't like. Hal and I have differing tastes, and the cake design evidenced this once again. I liked the smooth look of fondant with a very simple but contemporary cluster of flowers toward the top tier. It looked very clean. Hal preferred the grapes cascading down the length of the tiers, and buttercream. In the end, we compromised and found a middle ground with a nice balance of buttercream and flowers and no grapes. I'm happy. He's happy I'm happy. And with the extra 6" cake they provide the bride and groom on the side, we can have our cake and eat it too!