Planning a wedding can, if you let it, become a pretty overwhelming and all-encompassing endeavor. That’s why I’m making sure to have lots of hobby-type undertakings to keep me appropriately distracted from what could, potentially, turn me into a crazed lunatic needing surgical removal from her blackberry. Actually, I don’t own a blackberry. But you get the point.
 
In addition to training for a 10K Run in (yikes) 6 weeks time, I’ve decided to try my decidedly un-green hand at growing things. I stopped buying plants and trying to keep them quite some time ago because I somehow always managed to kill even the hardiest of species. Every once in a while I’ll lament: “we have no plants in our house.” To which LX always replies:  “we have no dead plants in our house.” Whatever. Smartass.
 
I (we) have a gorgeous rooftop patio on which, last summer, I decided I wanted to cultivate herbs and flowers of various sorts. As it happens, the only thing I managed to cultivate was a deep appreciation for a glass or two of Merlot after work as I watched the sun set.

This year I’m determined that the floral bouquet that surrounds me on my rooftop oasis has its origins someplace other than the ubiquitous bottle of red that seems to find its way up there.
 
It’s with this mindset that I found myself at Canadian Tire (where else?) last week, pondering the many hundreds of tiny envelopes of seeds on offer. Bombarded by explosions of colour and the promise of floral refinement & grace the likes of which I’d never seen, I was (surprisingly) able to narrow my selection to two varieties of flowers along with three types of herbs. Naturally, I took the easiest route available with the Even An Idiot Can Make These Grow Starter Kits… but I’m reserving judgment until I actually see life spring forth.
 
And, hey, Floyd is happy, healthy & thriving… and he’s MUCH more upkeep than a plant. So how challenging can a bit of foliage really be?
 
 

Think about the last wedding you attended. You probably remember what you wore. You might remember what the bride wore. What about the decorations or flowers?  Now think about the Wedding Cake. Can you remember what it looked like (without cheating and looking at photos)? Better yet, do you have any idea how it tasted? Exactly.
 
So why is it that, for an item that will by and large live out its remaining days at the bottom of a freezer (best case scenario) or a dumpster (most likely scenario), we’re told it’s perfectly acceptable to spend upwards of $500 to have The Perfect Wedding Cake. And, yes, I know that price is at the extreme low end of the scale.
 
After perusing dozens of websites and forums and suffering through a number of futile email threads and phone calls, I decided that there had to be a better way. That better way was my Maid of the Mist and my Mother.

A few universal constants hold true with regard to my Mom: She’s always polite (especially when she answers the phone); She can curse – not unlike a trucker, but still politely (a rare talent) – when it’s required; She never leaves the house without her hair combed & a dash of lipstick; and she’s one BAD mofo in the kitchen.
 
My Maid of the Mist (so named at her request because, really, everyone has a Maid of Honour) made the clever suggestion that I go to my local grocery store, buy some plain layer cakes frosted in white, take them home and decorate them myself (what I have in mind is nothing intricate and quite easily done – fingers crossed). My Mother took that idea one step further and offered to bake them. YAY for M.o.M and Mom!
 
We get to have Homemade Mom-Baked Cake© (while not legally copyrighted, it really should be; my friends & family who’ve experienced her Cream Cheese-Frosted Pineapple Cake know that the symbol is merited) at our wedding. That in and of itself would be worth the aforementioned hefty price tag. But that’s not how things work in Weezie World. So, for the price of some silver dragees, baking ingredients (along with one fabulous 3-tiered cake tray that I found online) and a few bottles of wine with which to ply Mom’s favour, LX & I get to have a Wedding Cake that actually will be a One of a Kind (because, really, when you’re paying someone to make it for you, what are the chances a previous incarnation doesn’t already exist – or will at some point after yours makes its debut?)

The Fabulous Cake Stand

If you’re not lucky enough, though, to have a M.o.M or a Mom like mine, there are other ways around the astronomical cost of your wedding day baked goods. Bakeries tend to base their price on a per-serving amount (e.g. $2.75 per person/serving. No, really. And that’s an extremely kind example) and assume you’re buying a cake big enough to feed each person on your guest list. Caterers will offer a better suggestion if you do decide to go the traditional route of paying a bakery for your cake: base your cake size on enough to feed half of your guests. Because chances are you’re going to have sweets of some kind included with the food you serve, whether you’re going the way of the sit-down, 8-course dinner or are veering toward a cocktail party and passed hors d’oeuvres.
 
Another fantastic idea (and one that I had no idea was even an option until I started doing a bit of looking around) is the faux bottom layer(s). Seriously – you can have the elaborate princess-y 5-tier cake, if that’s to your liking, that’s actually 4 layers of some Styrofoam-type material and one of actual cake. It all gets decorated the same – with real icing or fondant – but you only cut into and serve that top layer (and, really, what more do you need for your photos?). If you still want to feed cake to your guests, you can have (in addition to your one photo-ready top tier) a giant slab cake made and hidden back in the kitchen where nobody can see that gets cut up and served in the place of the fancy-pants (and overpriced) tiers that you’ve chosen to not have baked in the first place. Pretty clever, right? I like it.
 
So, whether you have a Dynamic M.o.M/Mom Duo or you opt for the crafty faux layers of cake, you’re still likely to end up with leftover cake. But at least, if you go one of these two routes, it won’t be quite so painful.
 

And because they make me smile.
 
You’ve all seen these. I know you have because I keep seeing them posted to your Facebook profiles and they keep arriving in my email, LONG after they’ve fizzled from their viral glory.
 
But, I like them. And it’s my blog. So THERE.
 
I also feel that I should write a wee disclaimer in case LX reads this (and, since he’s my IT guy, there’s a very real possibility he will). So, in the spirit of keeping the Groom-to-Be from having a full-blown panic attack: “No, honey, I’m not planning to enroll us in dance lessons or hire a choreographer so that we can perform a Broadway number during our reception. On the other hand…”
 
Julia and James’ First Dance. This, to the best of my knowledge, is the first in the Choreographed First Wedding Dance craze. And, seriously… what’s not to love?
 

 
 
Simply titled The Best Wedding Entrance Dance Ever – it really is quite unfortunate that this over-the-top fun entrance was to a Chris “I beat my girlfriend, then conveniently forgot about it when asked on Larry King” Brown song. Whatever. How could this happy couple and their delightfully dorky friends have known?
 

 
 
Even better?
Jim & Pam’s version… because, well – it’s Jim & Pam.