Irish Wedding Cakes

There are wedding ceremonies that you attend to but you don't have a clue whether the wedding is organized in a certain tradition or carries the mark of a different custom, other than you are familiar to. Well, unless you are told in the invitation, that is! It happened to me once when a friend of mine invited me to her wedding reception. I haven't attended the religious service since I had some early duties to take care of, but I have previously ensured my friend that I will definitely not miss her wedding party with its... wedding cake, of course.

The wedding reception was supposed to take place in a small intimate restaurant that had a nice view to a beautiful garden ornate with some small delicate replicas of famous medieval sculptures. When I stepped in I was pleasantly surprised by the floral decoration spread on the walls, and arranged in some large vases disposed in the corners of the room with roses cascading through their large openings. The centerpieces though looked a little bit strange to me as I wasn't used to that style of arrangements. It wasn't that it didn't match with the ambience, but I just found it odd, because I haven't seen that style before and to tell for sure I didn't even know what was all about.

I can say that wedding couples generally try to use decorations that have meanings to the event, but in that case, not recognizing the plants, I couldn't figure out the meaning either. I found my seat and since I was neighboring an old lady I dared ask her if she knew the name of that plant. She said that it is an Irish custom to put Lucky charms around shamrock centerpieces to symbolize the Holy Trinity and its spirit to guard over the marriage of the couple.

I was quite surprised to hear about this since I had no idea what was the connection that my friend might have with the Irish tradition. Later on when the wedding cake made its entrance the couple explained to us that the cake was a traditional Irish wedding cake which was made of fruits and white icing. As a topper there was a circle symbolizing two arms joining hands at the bottom and the couples explained that it was the circle of life that they both completed through their marriage and commitment to each other. The fruits through their richness presented in the Irish wedding cake symbolized blessings for wealth and prosperity.

They explained all these to us, as it seemed that I wasn't the only one to wonder about the Irish elements present at their wedding reception. They came up with the adding that actually their parents' origin was Irish, and they had this request that the wedding dinner party to include symbols of their Irish tradition, in this way to resemble their parents' weddings and through this resemblance to bring them good luck and stability in the future life as a married couple. I was so impressed that I cried.