I was going to guess that you're from somewhere in the Midwest, maybe Montana? Because the only person I've ever heard talk about tri-tips was from Montana.

This particular Cake Wrecks post rubbed me the wrong way as well. Most of Cake Wrecks' posts highlight poorly constructed and/or poorly decorated cakes, so this post, in which most of the cakes are well-sculpted and finely decorated, was a surprise. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "But those are pretty much awesome cakes! The only reason they are supposedly Cake Wrecks is their subject matter."

"You must have a wedding cake"

Yes. This pissed me off.

I grew up with a hippie mother who raised me so that I know it is "okay" to "not follow the rules." As in the rules of: You must have a wedding cake.

When my mother-in-law heard that I wasn't going to have a cake at my wedding, she insisted on bringing one. Until I insisted harder that she would not bring one.

Strife. It is my goddamn wedding!!! It is OKAY to not have a cake.

I like the cakes. And I like your comments on them even more.

Way to go Socio Image Blog!

I've only ever heard "tri-tip" in California, and hadn't thought of it as having any particular class or social connotation at all.

As for the cakes, I love the one with the tree stump and the initials in a heart. And I'm sure the happy couples loved each of these cakes. Maybe we can twist Tolstoy: All "proper" wedding cakes are alike; but each "improper" wedding cake is improper after its own fashion.

This is strange, as Cake Wrecks do tend to support alternative wedding cakes usually: themes like Lord of the Rings, Halloween and Super Mario Bros. have all been praised in the past. This weekend's featured baby shower cake (described as "awesome") even has Darth Vader on it...

Why does the doe have antlers?
Amongst Whitetail and Mule Deer only a hormonal imbalance will give them antlers.
So it is an older and a younger male on top of a cake?

My God, what's next? Women who aren't virgins wearing white wedding dresses?!? That'd be crazy!

As far as being an institution people take seriously, marriage is clearly on its way out. Weddings ain't what they used to be partly because they are no longer once-in-a-lifetime events for half the people getting married and I guess more are waking up to the fact that traditions are just habits we made up a long time ago. Marriage is an abstract construct that exists only in our minds and so we can make it anything we want. Well almost; we'll be able to when the skittish control freaks relax about two bucks wanting to get hitched or subversive baked goods being served at the reception.

Fermi, if you haven't already had that wedding, I'd say there's still time to tell you MIL that you've come around to her way of thinking and decided to indeed have a cake—then have one of those in this post delivered.

Yeah, I had an MIL like that, too.

What's wrong with the idea that you "choose" who you are going to marry? What's the alternative? Isn't who we marry a decision that we make at some point, if we choose to marry anyone at all?

Could someone point out the sociological relevance of a man choosing to marry the woman of his choice? Couldn't a woman choose to say no? Doesn't a woman choose who she's going to marry? Is there some socially repressive force at work there?

Ryan, the point is who is choosing whom. The idea that in order to be married correctly, the woman has to "be chosen" assumes that the woman is taking a passive role. The man decides when he's ready, buys a ring, and proposes. The woman says yes or no, but she doesn't take initiative. Does she propose to him? Oh goodness, no! If she wants to get married and he hasn't said anything about marriage yet, she'd better keep her needy, clingy, man-trap of a mouth shut because she might scare him off by being too aggressive.

There's nothing wrong with a man choosing the woman he wants to marry, if you are contrasting this with arranged marriages or something. Both the man and woman have a choice in the matter. The "socially repressive" aspect comes into play when you consider who is supposed to take the active role (the man) and who is expected to take the passive role (the woman) and how this negatively effects both men and women.

Anyways, those cakes are awesome! Seeing this post made me happy. I'm glad that you came down in the defense of the cakes.

P.S. I am not trying to make a statement about arranged marriages. I understand that the topic is very complicated. Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake is an excellent story about a couple who manage to make an arranged marriage work.

I meant that the point Lisa was making about women being chosen wasn't that choice is bad, but the dynamics of who is doing the choosing.

I'll defend Cake Wrecks here -- though the original intent of the blog was to showcase badly made cakes, the writer has done a few separate posts showcasing really well-made cakes, especially those which are well-made but with interesting (rarely seen) subject matter.

Of course I am not in the writer's head and I rarely read so much as skim through the yummy-looking cakes, but since they are so well done they should be called *art*, I can't imagine anyone thinking they were bad.

I am, however, offended at the idea that killing things can bring people together. Putting a representation of a dead animal on any cake freaks me out.

I dig the Jeep cake.

And--you're not from *my* part of the midwest because there's a few words I've never heard!

I'm guessing Pismo/StaMaria or Fresno.

Sabriel, you say you're not trying to make a statement about arranged marriages and then say "a couple who manage to make an arranged marriage work." Shock upon shocks, lets congratulate them because it's oh so rare for people in arranged marriages to stay together. Sorry for the sarcasm, that comment just rubbed me the wrong way.

I phrased it that way because in the novel it wasn't easy for them and it showed how it worked because they prioritized each other and put a lot of effort into the relationship. It was congratulatory for that reason. I'm sorry it rubbed you the wrong way, and I see how it would have sounded bad.

Is it Eastern Oregon?

as usual, you are conflating and exaggerating the "offense". You clearly have no sense of perspective and no humor. And you are beholden to some crazy, invalid, fallacious academic theory. May your department be eliminated and may your children study something sensible like medicine or engineering.

Well, it's good to see you allow at least SOME people to have a sense of humor. That's better than usual...

Here's something I find interesting about the comments: people these days seem really offended when their elders suggest or even insist on traditional customs for weddings. We are so absorbed with a wedding being about two people, that we forget weddings used to be and still could be about an entire community. I'm guilty of this too. When I mentioned to my mother I was thinking about a square wedding cake simply because I liked how it looked, she became upset. When I listened to her reasoning and how, to her, a round wedding cake, like a ring, symbolized eternity...well, I went with a round cake. Americans often say they don't have a culture, or we gravitate towards other cultures when we want tradition...because we reject what we already have.

That being said, I have a feeling these hunting-themed wedding cakes are probably well received in the communities where hunting is a cultural tradition. And while I tend to think hunting and trucks (and armadillos) belong on groom's cakes, people can do what they want. But I do think the older generations have a reason to lament that traditions which hold symbolism are being left behind.

I think that the issue here isn't whether these cakes are well made or not, or that wedding cakes need to be traditional, so much as they're kitschy and amusing, and rather disturbing. Deer heads perched on top of a cake? A big stripe of mud up the side of another? A disembodied hoof on the table? Ew. Just lost my appetite. As someone who is a city-dwelling, mud-avoiding, vegan, these cakes repel yet amuse me. I think that's what the author of Cake Wrecks is going for with these posts. Cakes like these are strange cultural artifacts to the majority of the audience for CW, and are humorous. It's not like finding some trappings for some culture funny is boiling that culture down to something to be laughed at, and it's not disrespectful to embrace and be amused by kitsch, whether it's your own or someone else's.

I'm not sure the issue is just wedding rules, but how an outdoors and/or rural lifestyle is perceived by others. Hence, why other alternative wedding cakes are praised but the "redneck" cakes receive some ribbing. I thought the post itself was tongue-in-cheek but some of the comments betrayed a little, dare I say, elitism. As a rural transplant to an urban area, I run into this mentality all of the time. "You're from where? But you seem so normal!"

I'll second altairian here. Cake wrecks often has subject matter "wrecks" most of the cakes in these categories are actually baby shower cakes that are usually highly disturbing such as pregnant tummies with attached breasts, babies popping out of stomachs like a scene from Alien, or babies actually coming through vaginas. Artistic? Maybe. But not something you want to cut up and serve for dessert.

The author of Cake Wrecks usually takes a line against super realistic animals or people. And seeing heads of deer on top of cake doesn't make me think mmm yummy and I actually eat deer.

As creepy as some of those cakes are to me (my father is a hunter and I have been surrounded by disembodied dear heads most my life but on top of cake, it is a little much for me personally), what I liked about them is that they are different and shatter the traditional concept of a "tasteful" wedding cake. I was thinking about this the other day when I saw the show My Big Redneck Wedding...the bride wore work boots and a hard hat with a veil and everything about the wedding very much reflected the sense of humor and personality of the couple. It looked awesome and I think it is an indication of the same point that was being made, that people may feel like they have to openly identify as lacking class or being rednecks to "get away with" having a non-traditional wedding. Obviously, people have non-traditional weddings without their cake being surrounded by shotgun shells, but at least among the cottage industry of reality TV wedding shows, the only people who feel free to have fun seem to be the rednecks.

I love the truck cake!
I'd answer the family location question, but I am enjoying other people's answers, and don't want to give it away.

I don't much care what others thank. I just want to know who to call about making one of them Buck and Doe Wedding cakes.

the 5th cake so cool how made it

I think they are wonderful.... and the person that made them have a very artistic nature. I have a lady at work that is very proud of being aka redneck. She just got remarried to the same man again..lol And i will be making her something like this for work party. It is all in fun and if the animals are not real or it does not hurt anyones feelings it is what it is a way of thinking.