Have rings, will travel: money matters

one of the very first things marlon and i decided on almost a year ago, way back when we started planning, was to have a travel-themed wedding.

and one of the cutest travel-themed wedding details that i saw while scouring for ideas was this wedding cake by cake artist judy uson – a stack of suitcases (and a very rounded bride and groom) made out of fondant icing. marlon liked the idea too.

it’s perfect! i crowed to myself as i picked up the phone and dialed judy. like all too many wedding thingamajigs, the cake was perfect but the price definitely not so. for at least 15 g’s, these sugar suitcases might as well have been wheelie bags – they rolled way, way out of our budget immediately... forever.

or so i thought.

fast forward to june, when we sat down to meet our heaven-sent caterer, kaye cunanan (who deserves a separate post). as we discussed the cake, which kaye would throw in for free, she mentioned that her cake supplier was none other than judy uson! pretty soon, kaye was penciling in “luggage cake” into her neat leather binder as visions of our beautiful luggage cake – for free! – swirled in my head.

over the months, i fantasized more about a wedding cake than can possibly be considered healthy.

what would we put on top? an artist’s palette or a pair of glasses for marlon? sheets of music or a pair of high heels for me?

kaye’s email in september brought an unexpected dilemma. and i quote: “judy uson’s luggage cake is rrrrrealllly expensive.” for a single-layer, all-edible, 14x14x5.5-inch cake, we’d have to add P6,800 to the total catering cost! sweetheart that kaye is, she offered to transport the cake for us so that we wouldn’t have to pay judy’s P3,500 out of town charge.

kaye also sent me the cake designs that judy could provide for free. they’re fine, i guess, but nothing that really knocks my socks off – or does anything for the travel theme.

so the question is: do we splurge on the suitcase, or go with one of the freebies?

i don’t quite know where i am on it. i mean, it’s six grand we didn’t intend to spend. for something that’s going to be cut into pieces and eaten within hours of its delivery. (i was this way about flowers, too.) on the other hand, other couples have easily dropped twice, even thrice as much dough (pardon the pun) on taller, fancier cakes that are actually four parts styrofoam to one part cake!