Have you ever wondered exactly when and how...and more importantly, WHY the barbaric custom of brides and grooms smashing each others' faces with wedding cake began? Whenever I see this appallingly savage "tradition" enacted, I'm honestly baffled as to why seemingly civilized couples would want to do something so ugly? Considering the thousands of dollars spent on wedding apparel and hair and makeup for the bride, it seems such an asinine waste of time and money. But more than that, in viewing several clips of weddings where this tasteless ritual is enacted, it strikes me as really brutal and aggressive, not cute and playful at all. You see these couples apparently letting loose their anger at each other. What a way to start a marriage, huh? With white frosting caked in your nostrils and your new husband ramming his finger in your eye. Nice!
I've done a bit of digging to find out exactly how this business began...and was surprised to learn that its beginnings go all the way back to Roman times. Supposedly, it was a guarantee of the bride's fertility to give the couple a "rude shower" of cake at their wedding. Originally, the cake was not eaten by but thrown at the bride. Wheat was/is a symbol of fruitfulness and was among the earliest grains to be ceremoniously showered on the bride and groom. Much as they do today, young unmarried women were supposed to scramble to collect the grains of wheat to ensure their own betrothal (as they now do for the wedding bouquet). Somewhere around 100 B.C., the tradition was altered by early Roman bakers, who started baking small sweet cakes with the grain instead. But it seems that the tradition of angrily smashing the cake in the wedding couple's faces is an all-American alteration of this tradition. In these supposedly more "enlightened" times, it seems clear that this crude and savage custom had best be put to permanent rest. Above all, it's just a waste of perfectly good cake! Couples of America: Don't do it.
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