The Frosting on the Cake

There are many ways to make a wedding fun. One obvious way is to hire a great band. Another is to choose an informal setting that begs for straw hats and shirt sleeves. Few brides, however, have thought of letting guests decorate the cake -- right at the wedding.

Carol Varney and Jason Read originally intended to make their own cake, but time and common sense prevailed. So they asked the caterers from Amherst's The Black Sheep deli and bakery to make an undecorated cake, alternating layers of chocolate and lemon with a white buttercream frosting. The bride and groom, friends, and the caterers provided decorations, which included gumdrops, sprinkles, all kinds of candy set out in muffin tins, and fresh flowers.

One friend brought "bride" and "groom" plastic action figures. The female turned out to be the ferocious T-X -- the Terminatrix -- from the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The male action figure was Giles from TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "All the guests came up and decorated it," says Varney. "We also had little wet naps for people to wipe their hands. It was really fun. Giles ended up on the top layer. My person was looking at him from below with two gumdrops, one in each hand."

Since the wedding, friends have been asking Varney where she got the idea. "I'd just been to weddings where the cake was so formal looking," she explains, "and we really wanted people to be involved. We wanted them to feel a part of the whole ceremony." After the caterers wheeled in the plain cake, everyone who wanted to went to work on it. "People loved it," Varney says. "They e-mailed afterward to say, `It was the best wedding cake we've ever seen.' "