I get this e-mail from a man about a month ago. "My wife and I will be traveling out your way, and I am going to surprise her with a vowel renewal and I'd like to order a small wedding cake."
So Romeo and his son get back to me. They want a very small (2 tier, 8"base, 5" topper) with a beach theme.*most recent beach wedding cake in my photo file* (I think it's kind of cool that the Dad let the son be a part of this)

I'm thinking...this lady must really be something special for this man to go through this much trouble. He's making the vacation on the Outer Banks. He's surprising her with a vowel renewal ceremony. He and his teen-aged son have picked out the wedding cake together for heaven's sake, and Romeo is handling all the details on the down low to keep it a surprise.
I'm thinking who ever this guy is, he needs to give lessons.
So this evening, I go to deliver the cake. She is not expecting it. Romeo meets me at the door and points me upstairs to where the cake is going. There are about 8 people in the living room, plus more out on the deck. The 'Bride', is slouched in a chair with several young girls around. All of a sudden, everyone stops talking because I am there. As usual,I open my big mouth and attempt to crack a joke, "I'm not the Elephant in the room, Ya'll can start talking again!" Nobody laughs. So, now I'm feeling very awkward, and I figure at this point, just keep your mouth shut, set up the cake, get paid and move on to the next thing.The bride remarks, "We're just tired..." It's 5:30 in the evening!

I think to myself, "You've been with this guy for almost 30 years and he goes through all this trouble, and you can't get out of the chair to see his hard efforts?" Poor guy!

I carry the box in, unveil the cake and place it on the table.
The bride, after all the effort her husband goes through, never gets up to look at the cake, nor comments on it. Only the father and son comment on the cake, saying, "We were right to pick the seashells design for the cake."
Another minute or two and I'm out of there, cash in hand and she never looked at the cake. Never even commented on the cake.
I'm not looking for this woman to validate my cake decorating skills, but for heaven's sake! When someone goes through this much effort to give you a gift like this, shouldn't you acknowledge the gift?!

And then my mind starts to wonder: "I wonder if dude messed up, and maybe he's got some major sucking up to do?" Or I wonder if she messed up and this is kind of like, in your face kind of stuff."
Whatever, it all remains a mystery to me and I kind of feel sorry for the guy in the long run. He's not only married to this lady, he 're-married' her too!

Wow....I'm speechless.

Jennifer

LMAO at "vowel renewal."

Dear A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y, I loooooooooooooooooooove you!

Not to give this gal an excuse, but my mom actually tried to plan a renewal of my vows last summer. She went as far as to ok it with friends an family and began planning. Then she approached my husband, who thankfully, is a smart man and said, "she does NOT like surprises."
He was right. She came to me about it after planning a lot of it, and while I enjoyed the sentiment and thoughtfulness, I would have HATED if she had done that.
I hate surprises, my hubby and I weren't getting along super well (we are now), AND my first wedding was ruined so I would definitely want to plan the renewing of my vows myself.
SO, while this guy may have been a gem, he may have overstepped his boundaries and his wife may be like me, a party pooper who hates surprises and would have wanted to be in on the planning.
Kudos to him though for going above and beyond!

I'm guessing she was not impressed with the whole event being sprung on her, it had nothing to do with liking/not liking your cake.

You know, I've heard a lot of stories of couples who've split up soon after renewing their vowels...er vows, LOL...it makes me wonder if it's sometimes used as a last ditch effort at reconciling differences. They think renewing vows will bring them closer together or something? Maybe the husband was on the outs and was trying the 'surprise vow renewal' as a last ditch salvage of the marriage? Who'd know!? Just a thought.

Better than my sister's "last ditch effort to save the marriage...".... another baby (her 4th!)...<sigh>

Cake would have been sooooo much better.lol

What a rotten thing for his wife to do weather he messed up big time and is kissing fanny you don't behave like like what is she teaching her son and can you imagine jr's. feeling helping good Dad and his mother acts like she could care less.

My last 2 vowel renewal cakes were not good either--both canceled before the actual renewal ever happened. I got the feeling from both that there were marriage issues and the renewal was an attempted bandaid on a bleeding wound.

Your cake is really lovely. Making your own chocolate shells too, wow!

I would guess there was a row earlier on and everyone was still talking about it when you arrived which is why they they stopped talking when you walked in and didn't respond to your comment.

I guess you'll never know the real story behind the whole thing.

Maybe this guy should think about finding someone for new vows. I don't care what he/she did the effort should still be acknowledged. I would be so happy for my family to try to plan something like that.

Some women are just like that and don't show emotion. I have seen brides that are not into there own weddings.. which I don't understand...

The only thing that would have been worse is if she would have let the kids play in the cake... I have had that happen at weddings.

Now I wonder why was she up in the main room and he wasn't? When did she find out about the suprise??? just feel sad for both of them.

Tokazodo I don't think it was you or your cake. It sounds like something happened ... of course you didn't know about it. Just sounds like you happened to walk in right in the middle of everything. I'm imagining the situation in my head & can feel the tension in the room & I wasn't even there.

Who knows maybe after you left maybe everything livened up & all went well. Cake always makes me happy ....

This is another case were we can put all kinds of 'stories' behind it but we will never really know. I find it interesting how everyone jumps to negative conclusions about them having a bad marriage or having had a fight.

Maybe the woman really was just tired, maybe she wasn't feeling good, maybe something else had happened that they didn't want to share with the public.

Gosh, I wonder if she's sick and this was a last vacation together and he wanted to do something to commemorate their life together. That would certainly explain her being tired and not reacting as expected and her husband's attempts to make her happy.

I hope she's okay. Poor thing.

Okay, so now I'm really feeling like a horses behind!

You're right, no one knows what happens behind closed doors. But i give a big thumbs up to the husband and son for giving so much thought and effort. Obviously the love her very much. Plus they got to eat cake and that makes everyone happy, well at least that works for me.