According to The Knot wedding resource magazine and website, smashing cake into the face of a spouse after tying the knot is a tradition tied to medieval England. To celebrate the marriage, the bride would toss a piece of piece of cake over her shoulder for good luck.
This evolved into newlyweds feeding a piece of cake to one another, then taking frosting or a small bit of cake and rubbing it gently onto each other's faces—usually the cheek or tip of the nose.
But in the years between then and now, this tradition turned into couples not telling each other whether they would do a cake smash and the bit of frosting or cake turning into an entire handful being aggressively smeared all over their new spouse's face.
Cake in nostrils or eyes often happens, and with particularly zealous participants, broken noses, scratched corneas, or knocked out teeth have happened.
Not a great way to start a marriage.
Reddit user TheLoneHander asked:
"People who smashed the wedding cake into your new spouse's face: how is your relationship and marriage now?"
Perfect
"My mother and stepfather agreed they wouldn't at their wedding, but my sister was nearby egging on my mom to smash the cake."
"They looked at each other, nodded, then smashed the cake in my sister's face."
"It was perfect."
~ Lonecoon
Whole Face
"My friends did. She took a tiny bit with her finger and wiped it on his nose and mouth."
"He got mad and smashed her whole face into the cake. They are divorced."
~ Notfit_anywhere24
"My friend smashed it in her husband's face, they hadn’t really talked about it beforehand. They got divorced 1 year in."
~ katXOmichele
Finalized
"I asked him not to."
"I left 15 months later. Hopefully the divorce will be finalized soon."
~ ouisseau
"My husband was horrified by the idea of the cake smash, also the garter toss."
"We cut and fed each other cake and it was very gentle and sweet."
"10+ years later I wouldn’t have done it any other way."
~ HeyLikeableZest
Wham!
"I asked her not to do it. It was the only thing I asked for during the reception. 'Please don't shove cake in my face. I hate that stupid tradition'. She said, 'OK, I won't'."
"I fed her cake, then she fed me some, with the plate peculiarly close to my face. Then, WHAM!"
"Cake up the nostrils and her with a sh*t-eating grin on her face and her entire redneck family howling with laughter, except her mom, who was the only decent one, who had a look of chagrin on my behalf."
"My first thought was 'I f*cking KNEW it!', followed up with 'Don't make a scene...' Then I smiled and said 'I'm gonna go get cleaned up' and spent the next 5 minutes in the bathroom blowing icing out of my sinuses."
"We got divorced 7 months later."
~ Arkayb33
Trust
"Feeding each other cake is symbolic for taking care of each other. I get some people might be OK with getting cutesy with it, but I felt very serious about it.
"How can I trust a person to take care of me and provide for me (and I them) if they can't even pretend to, symbolically, immediately after committing officially?"
"I explained to my husband how I felt about it and if he did it that marriage license/certificate would never get filed, final answer. Hard stop."
"Neither of us cake smashed. Still happily married 8 years later."
"It wasn't about money or makeup or my dress, it was about trust. Trusting someone to take care of you appropriately, if/when needed, in sickness or in health."
"To not throw it in your face, or rub your face in it. But to delicately do it with love and care."
~ IdEstTheyGotAlCapone
Oil And Water
"I asked him not to, he did. Divorced after 2 years."
"Yep..it was a terrible marriage all around."
"Never should have gotten married in the first place. We were oil and water."
~ NefariousnessOk2925
"Man, I just can't get this. With how much brides usually spend to look their absolute best on their wedding day like the idea of smashing their face into a cake and potentially ruining their makeup and their hair (and possibly their dress) seems so out of line to me."
"I just see it as being disrespectful if she's not completely into the idea. And yeah, I'd rather make a light hearted joke out of myself before deciding to make my wife into one without her being in on it on a huge celebration like that."
~ dlun01
2 for 2
"My brother smashed the cake into his bride's face at both of his 2 weddings. He's twice married and twice divorced, so... didn't go great for him."
"He's not one for self reflection or emotional growth, so even if I or someone else did tell him not to do it, it wouldn't matter."
"Plus he is actually now disowned by our entire family for some heinous sh*t, so I wouldn't speak to him even if I could."
~ letmehowl
Runaway Train
"I asked my ex husband not to. He did. Divorcing after 8 months."
"We were together nearly 3 years. Nothing really changed post-wedding, even though many people promised that things would improve, as though the wedding were some magical portal."
"If anything, the wedding was a distraction towards which we were uneasily hurtling on what felt like a runaway train we were probably both too scared to get off of."
"Post-wedding, the problems we had been having remained and we didn’t have the wedding planning 'stress' to blame any longer."
"The non-consensual cake feed, with all the attendant symbolism particularly in hindsight, served to sour an already tense event."
~ krasxam
Photo Op
"Our photographer heavily implied we should do it, but with the cake in my hand looking at my partner's face, I just couldn't do it. Especially because she said 'Do not smash the cake in my face'."
"So to compromise, I smashed it into my own face and got raspberry sauce all over my suit."
"Still married, so I guess it was the right decision."
~ Studejour
Disrespect
"I divorced her. I still recall the picture of when she did it. I was pissed."
"It shows a fundamental disrespect for your spouse when you do something like that."
~ lloopy
Assault
"I pleaded with him not to, and he did anyway—and broke my nose doing it. By law, I had to wait 12 months to file for divorce; filed on our first anniversary."
"He grabbed the back of my head by my hairstyle and slammed me into the cake and held me down. I'm not sure if it was the table or the cake plate that actually broke my nose."
"And yes, he was charged with assault, but got no jail time."
"His explanation was that he thought it would be a funny story we could tell our grandkids and it would help me loosen up. He later claimed that I 'slipped' and that's why the injury was so bad."
"My BFF deserves a lot of the credit for me being able to leave and get him charged."
"She was so supportive and kind—and provided me with a place to live—and kept telling me to pretend this was happening to her or my sister, and what my advice to them would be. Or if he did it to our child at their birthday party."
"Having that kind of support made a huge difference in being able to leave."
~ Outrageous_Space_364
Contrast
"My first husband tried, I dodged it. We separated within a year, but tried to reconcile. It failed miserably, and we divorced after 5 years total."
"My second husband asked me which flower I wanted to try (I love an icing flower) and cut the cake so I could have the piece with the flower. We’re celebrating our 9 year anniversary this June."
~ MaeInside
Predictably Horrible
"I remember my stepdad doing this to my mom at their wedding. I could tell she was upset. I was 10."
"He was predictably a horrible person. She stayed with him way too long, but the universe took care of things by ushering him off the mortal coil via a big fat heart attack."
~ ThePrimCrow
High School Sweetheart
"My ex-husband did it even though I asked him not to."
"The cake smashing was an indication of how much he really respects me, which is not at all."
"Technically, we were together for 29 years, but I left him at 24. I stayed for a lot of reasons, but you can boil it down to I got stuck in fight or flight and very effective gaslighting."
"I also knew instinctively that my family wouldn’t help me get out, and sure enough, they didn’t. Also, he was my high school sweetheart, and I loved him even though all he ever did was hurt me. I excused it because of his deep childhood trauma."
~ Karens__Last__Ziti
Obnoxious
"My ex had promised to be super nice about it. I wasn’t wanting to do it at all, I kept trying to talk her out of it, but she insisted."
"Then, at our wedding, she decided she 'just wanted to be a little obnoxious and have fun' and smashed a giant piece in my face."
"I returned the favor because she went around everything we decided, and she acted like I slapped her across the face."
"We lasted ten years."
~ No_Shine3326
Would you—or did you—do the wedding cake smash? What do you think of the tradition?
Kerry Dolan/Forbes
@teddysphotos/Instagram
