Wedding cake contest
I love this idea for a wedding cake contest, posted as a comment to a Lifehacker thread about budget weddings.
Our baker went Chapter 11 the month before our wedding, and so we told all the guests to bring a cake if they wanted to eat a cake, and we'd award prizes. We had 15 entries, some very simple, some really complex and amazing. A ton of fun, really interesting additional wedding-day activity (the contest), more food, more involvement.
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About Ariel Meadow Stallings
Author of Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, Ariel acts as the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire websites. She lives, loves, and dorks out hard in Seattle, WA.







Kelly Mahoney said
How inventive — I really like that. It gets people involved.
wedding accessories said
what a great idea!
Veronica said
That is a brilliant idea~!
I finally decided what I was going to do about cakes when I was wandering around in Chinatown the other day.
All of the bakeries in Chinatown have these adorable mini-cakes and single cake slices, like the slices in the bottom of the photo here… Cuties!
The one I was at had little cakes shaped like pandas and penguins and all kinds of cuteness, and they were all around sixty cents each! So, I decided right there that we could buy a large assortment of slices and still spend less than $100 on cake for all~ Plus, everyone doesn't have to eat the same kind of cake. Can you imagine all the cuties arranged on a table with fresh fruit and flowers¿
I just thought I'd mention it in case someone else might want to "steal" my idea.
Keep up the great work Ariel. Thanks again for all of your help and advice. Everytime I feel like I must be crazy for planning an abnormal (yay!) wedding, I just whip out your book and read a few chapters. Or jump in the nets and read the blog. More than the advice provided I really feel supported by the thought that there are a lot of us out there who are doing it Our Way.