Every reception has a wedding cake (or two). Some have chocolate fountains. A few have a whole dessert table. (Good thing calories don’t count at weddings :>)
But last weekend, I got to experience something that is common in Pittsburgh (read my blog entry about that) but I have never seen before at a Chicago area wedding — tons of homemade cookies!
We ate the refreshingly moist wedding cake. Then, as the evening went on, I heard people wonder out loud, “When are the cookies going to be served?”
Now, in Pittsburgh, a bunch of the couple’s relatives bake and bake and bake more cookies.
At the Westin Chicago Northwest in Itasca last weekend, we all ate the cookies of one woman — Karen. There were, I don’t know, 100 of 7 different kinds of cookies! All made from scratch in the previous 3 days.
Karen is known for her cookies. When she shows up at some place, everyone wants to know if she brought cookies. If she can not make an event, they want to know if she can send cookies anyway! I now know why. They are amazing.
Best yet — Karen brought bags for us to take cookies home. People joked about having gallon bags to tote them home in. “Take two bags,” Karen told me. I just took one really full quart size bag. And shared them with my wife. And ate more.
It was a labor of love. Karen and the bride’s parents have been good friends for decades. Their daughters have been good friends since age six.
Junjun and Yilin — both born in China, met at the University of Chicago — had two wedding cakes that each had the Chinese word for happiness. In fact, each cake had two symbols of happiness — representing double happiness.
Double Happiness
I ate a slice of one cake. It was delicious. I figured the other cake was to make sure everyone had some. No! We were served another slice from the second cake.
The first cake represented double happiness for the couple. The second cake represented double happiness for the children they hope to have. So, we had to eat two. Oh, and then there was the delicious egg cream mini-pie. I actually had a sugar buzz going. But what joy!
As a friend of mine told me on Sunday at church, “You have the most interesting experiences and meet the nicest people.” I do!
The wedding was last Saturday at Promontory Point — a beautiful park near the Museum of Science and Industry, near the University of Chicago. The park juts out into Lake Michigan, so three sides are surrounded by water.
When I’m invited to a reception, I enjoy the desserts. Most often it’s a wedding cake. Sometimes it’s cupcakes. I’ve seen individual wedding cakes (read a recent blog entry about that). The best is a dessert table.
Last month, at Nicole and Paul’s wedding at the beautiful Odyssey Country Club in Tinley Park, they had their “signature chocolate fountain”. I love the fresh fruit — and other items — to dip into the chocolate.
My wife and I sat at a table with the groom’s mother. (Paul had a touching tribute to his father, who has passed away, during the ceremony.) The whole table is from Pittsburgh and they told me what I had read days earlier in the New York Times — wedding receptions in Pittsburgh are all about the HOMEMADE COOKIES.
In Pittsburgh, it's all about the homemade cookies!
For as long as anyone here can remember, wedding receptions in Pittsburgh have featured cookie tables, laden with dozens of homemade old-fashioned offerings like lady locks, pizzelles and buckeyes. For weeks ahead — sometimes months — mothers and aunts and grandmas and in-laws hunker down in the kitchen baking and freezing. Then, on the big day, hungry guests ravage the buffet, piling plates high and packing more in takeout containers so they can have them for breakfast the next day.
I have never seen such a thing in Chicagoland. Sounds good, though, doesn’t it?
I have seen cupcakes — a growing trend. Most couples have a wedding cake. Last weekend, for the first time ever, I saw individual wedding cakes — one for each guest.
A wedding cake for each guest
Unfortunately, this is not the photo of them. The 5 different flavors made by Bombon Cafe of Chicago were more varied and prettier than these. The couple, Jennifer and Greg, had the on-top-of-every-detail Kelly Turner of the Allerton Hotel box up two of them for me to take home — chocolate and key lime! They were quite tasty and beautiful to look at. They were so rich that my wife and I shared one of them — which satisfied our sweet tooth for the day. So, we had two days of fresh baked treats.
When the couple went to their tasting, the cakes were presented to them this way. They asked and the owners said sure, they could do that for their wedding. So, don’t hesitate to ask when you see something you like.
Jim and Sandy’s reception was aboard Odyssey Cruise at Navy Pier. It was the first time I have been at a reception onboard without first having married the couple on the top deck of the boat. (They were married where the Obamas had their reception; read about it here.)
You never know what the weather will be when you plan a wedding — the three of us had met 18 months earlier. You hope for the best and plan for the worst.
At 10:30pm, on Saturday, Nov. 7, my wife, Pam, and I were comfortably on the top deck of the boat — outside — enjoying the magnificent views. In fact, the weather was better than it was at the end of August when the company my wife works for had their dinner boat cruise! She wore a winter coat that evening with gloves. (Unfortunately, I could not attend, I was officiating a wedding at Salvatore’s in Lincoln Park.)
Back to our cruise: to the east was an almost ‘magical’ view I have never seen before — the half moon was low in the sky, there was a bit of fog with the light of the moon reflected in the calm water. To the west was the magnificent skyline of Chicago — clear and impressive. We could see some of the stars overhead. It was the perfect ending for a wonderful reception — started with lobster bisque soup, ended with a moist and creamy chocolate cake followed by a chocolate fountain with wine and dancing (the couple did an outstanding first dance; I don’t dance much, to Pam’s regret).
An increasing trend, one I like, is to have cupcakes for the dessert at the wedding reception — instead of cake.
Sometimes, the couple will have a really small cake — just to be able to cut it and feed it to each other. See it at the top of this tower? But most often, it’s just cupcakes.
You can do so many more flavors. (My wife said I could choose any flavor for our wedding cake — as long as it was a white cake :>) This presents so many more color combinations. The groom wore a gold colored vest and tie. The cupcakes matched the theme. (Brides, wearing white, don’t have many options, color-wise.)
This couple got married last weekend on the top (open) deck on the Odyssey Boat at Navy Pier. It is, likely, my last outdoor wedding of the year. Considering that it was lower 50′s and windy (but no rain), that’s fine by me and most guests.
“Planning the celebration of a lifetime during the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression is a daunting task, so it’s no secret that many brides are cutting back. The average amount a couple is spending on their wedding this year is down more than $5,000 from 2008, theweddingreport.com estimates,” according to a report on CNN/Oprah.com
According to the article, some budget wedding errors:
- cash bar (or tickets) — limit the choices not the amount.
- asking guests to help pay for wedding costs on the registry
- inviting guests to the shower but not the wedding
According to the article, some budget wedding ideas that work:
- serve lunch portion size (and price) at dinner
- make-your-own-sundae bar instead of cake (couple has the “first scoop”)
- Choose an off night or get married in the off-season. Any day other than Saturday can be negotiated for lower costs. Same thing goes for months like January and February when venues have less demand.
Your guests are there to celebrate you and your love — not just for a party. Be creative. Be thrifty. And make the ceremony special — that is the point of the day, after all.
“Mobile puppet characters with polished peformances that are a mix of comedy, music, dance and audience intereaction” is how the brochure describes Those Funny Little People.
I call the bride and groom — invited wedding reception crashers — amusing and funny. The dances are very well choreographed. The lips really move to the words of the song — and smooch people at the reception. It was fun and funny.
I’ve never seen them at a reception before. The groom’s parents did this as a surprise gift. It came after dinner as a kickoff to an evening of dancing. It worked.
Later, someone mentioned that it must be odd being in the costume for everyone looks at your belly button area (for that’s where the face of the character is; the actor looks out through an opening in the hat).
This happened at the reception for Rachel and Joe in Wheaton at Cantigny’s new banquet hall — opened just this year. Large windows overlook the scenic park. High ceilings make for an open feel. Cantigny does all their own cooking and baking on the premises. It was an especially moist and delicious marble cake.
Another way to customize a reception — a cake topper that looks like you two!
The New York Times reported on Sunday, “Thanks to digital technology, cake toppers are more customizable than they have ever been. Plenty of Web sites, including etsy.com, offer an abundance of prices (from about $20 on up) and styles — realistic, traditional and quirky. They are, no matter the personality, the couple in miniature.”
When we got married 25 years ago, we had a generic couple atop our cake. Not sure a customized cake topper is worth the price but it is attention getting.
Read the entire article, with more links, here.
Cake & Desserts, Cultural Traditions | Rev. Phil Landers | 
May 27, 2010 8:32 AM | 
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