Lover's Wedding Cake | The Great CAKE Festival

Every other guest at the festival brought a cake with a recipe. Lita Bodo brought something different. She brought a story, and a poem, and the memory of her Aunt Ella Strader, and when you hear it, you understand why there is no recipe attached. Some cakes are about technique. This one is about love.

Aunt Ella's wedding cake, according to Lita, was consumed entirely by the wedding guests before the groom arrived. The groom, who was apparently late, showed up to an empty cake stand and a very happy crowd. Aunt Ella found this hilarious. She and her husband were married for over fifty years.

Lover's Wedding Cake

This is not a recipe.
This is a love letter
wearing flour on its hands.

My Aunt Ella made a wedding cake
and the guests ate it
before the groom arrived.

He was late.
She was not angry.
She laughed for fifty years.

That is what a wedding cake is for:
not to be preserved
behind glass on an anniversary,

but to be eaten
by people who are happy
and a little bit hungry

and who love you
enough to wait
and not quite enough to wait.

by Lita Bodo, in memory of Aunt Ella Strader

Lita did not provide a recipe. This is the point.

Make whatever wedding cake you love most. Bake it for people who matter. Don't wait for the groom.