Cake abuse

Disclaimer: The following post is likely to make you crave cake for the rest of the day. Read at your own risk!

We've all seen it happen at weddings. It's the dirty little secret of wedding planners and coordinators. It's cake abuse, and it's happening right now, just as it happens every day somewhere in the world.

Cake abuse is a serious issue that not everyone wants to acknowledge. After all, who wants to admit that they don't like or want to eat wedding cake? No one! But it's the truth, and cake is thrown away at every wedding. B and I are going to do our best to prevent cake abuse at our wedding.

Our plan is to not pass cake at tables. Those who want cake will have easy access to it, but those who don't want cake won't have it placed in front of them. We'll work with our wedding coordinator to come up with a best guess number of how many people will want cake and order that amount.

When we went to cake tastings (one of the best parts of wedding planning, by far), we had the idea of ordering cupcakes instead of a wedding cake. Cupcakes are fun and provide much more flexibility than a regular cake--we can order as many flavors as we want and can mix and match the icing flavors. Plus cupcakes allow for some pretty cool decorating possibilities.

Now 2 questions remain--how many cupcakes to order, and in what combination of flavors? Below are our options (prepare to drool):

• Traditional Wedding White
• White Chocolate Butter
• Dark Chocolate Butter
• Milk Chocolate Butter
• Mocha Fudge
• Marble
• Red Velvet
• Apple Cinnamon
• Holiday Spice
• Carrot
• Banana Cream
• Strawberry
• Mandarin Orange
• Hazelnut
• Zesty Lemon
• Pistachio
• Almond
• Rum
• Traditional English Fruit Cake
• Coconut
• Maple Walnut

Our original plan was to get white chocolate, dark or milk chocolate, mocha fudge, red velvet, carrot cake, and some sort of fruit flavor (lemon, banana, or strawberry), but I am rethinking this decision. In nearly all aspects of life, the "less is more" theory tends to prevail. By providing many options, we increase the likelihood that we won't order flavors in the correct ratio, and we might end up with a dozen untouched red velvet cupcakes (B and I both like the idea of red velvet and considered ordering a groom's cake in red velvet but didn't want to go overboard on the cake budget). It might be best to simply order white chocolate and dark or milk chocolate and mix up the icings a bit--snow white buttercream, traditional buttercream, chocolate fudge buttercream, white chocolate buttercream, and cream cheese frosting provide lots of different options, both visually and from a taste perspective.

And if you're preparing to laugh over the idea of B and me cutting a cupcake for our big cake-cutting scene, I'm afraid we're going to have to disappoint. We considered doing it for the sake of humor but decided to order a small cake for the cake cutting instead. Topper/decorations TBD.