Cakegate: Pinterest Ideas Don’t Work

While looking for a good photo to accompany my pre-wedding checklist, I stumbled upon one of the inscription of our engagement cake.

That got me thinking the whole day about that very same cake and so I decided I needed to share the story because we’ll never be completely over it.

Inspired by too many episodes of Cake Boss and by spending several hours browsing Pinterest for engagement cake ideas, we headed out one day in mid-March to one of the bigger bakeries in the country. For privacy purposes, I won’t name them, but if you’re smart enough, you can figure it out.

There, we had a nice consultation session with their sales lady who listened to everything we had to say and promised us she’d give us what we wanted- a nice cake for 40 people. Again, the place is highly respectable and have done cakes for everyone. The selection of pictures she showed us only served to confirm that they would do good work.

At the end of our visit, she asked me to email her a set of our requests with the pictures that had inspired us- and I guess that’s where it all went wrong.

You see, I think we were at fault, for asking too much.

We didn’t want anything super-traditional, and we definitely didn’t want it in white or pink or any “normal” colors. We picked lilac because my dress and my favorite color are purple. We also completely loved the unusual shape of one cake but the flower work on the second. And all the colors we asked for were more of the pastel degree than they were in-your-face bright.

We also asked to incorporate our cute couple logo that my friend Rola had designed for us to go onto the engagement favors. So overall, nothing too complex.

Then the day of the engagement came and I knew something was wrong even before I saw it. When I did, I swear I didn’t know how to react. You be the judge, guys.

It was ugly and unlike anything we ordered. Oh and the fondant looked like a shirt that wasn’t ironed. I’m not sure that was even lilac! And look at us- complete twins, no?

Get your act together people.

I think my mother was the most disappointed. No proud Lebanese mother wants to serve this to her guests, especially if those guests are her daughter’s in-laws.

Thankfully though, what it lacked in appearance, it made up for in taste. The interior was chocolate with a hint of raspberry jam. It was completely devoured (maybe so we didn’t have to see it).

For our dinner party later that same day, we ordered a much simpler cake with no frills-and no special requests. No one ended up disappointed and no angry phone calls to the shop were made the very next day.

We still don’t have a justification to as why they messed up so horribly- but we’re no longer their clients.

I think we learned our lesson: don’t use Pinterest as your inspiration. It really doesn’t work here because non-traditional can be tough to execute apparently.