The (Stupid) Top of the Wedding Cake

From the title of this post, it's pretty easy to see where I'm going here. I also considered going with "I Want My Damn Freezer Back," but that didn't seem to be descriptive enough.

No matter how you say it, the tradition of keeping the top of the wedding cake until your first anniversary is silly. It needs to be retired immediately. No, yesterday. Or maybe even a year ago so I wouldn't be stuck angrily fitting things into our tiny freezer every Sunday for the last eight months.

Like many couples, we saved the top tier of our cake after our wedding in March. Covered in wrapping, foil, and probably like a veil or something girly, it has dominated the freezer space ever since. And every time I go in there to put away some ice cream, chicken wings, frozen dinners, or freeze pops, it taunts me. "Ha," it says. "I'm huge and annoying, and you can't get rid of me."

I've pleaded with Bridget several times to do something about this:
Me: "Hey, this cake thing is dumb. What if we just save one piece and share that?"
Bridget: "No."
Me: "Why not? It's not going to taste good anyway. It's going to be gross."
Bridget: "Because it's tradition and it will make me happy."

End of conversation.

The "make me happy" argument will get me every time. But tradition? Come on. What does that even mean? I decided to look it up and, on the Bridal Guide website, I found this:

Origin: To understand this tradition, you just have to think back to a familiar schoolyard rhyme: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!” It used to be thought that once a wedding took place, a baby was going to come shortly after, so therefore the wedding and christening ceremonies were often linked, as were the respective cakes that were baked for each occasion. With fancy, elaborate, multi-tiered wedding cakes becoming a major trend in the 19th century, the christening cake began to take a back seat to the wedding cake. Since the top tier of the wedding cake was almost always left over, couples began to see the christening as the perfect opportunity to finish the cake. Couples could then logically rationalize the need for three tiers — the bottom for the reception, the middle for distributing, and the top for the christening.

Today: As the time between weddings and christenings widened, the two events became disassociated and the reason for saving the top tier changed. Now, couples enjoy saving the top layer of their wedding cake to eat on their first anniversary as a pleasant reminder of their special day.

"As a pleasant reminder of their special day?" Seriously? What are the pictures for? Plus, it's only a year. If you forget your wedding day after a year, you probably have bigger problems than the top of a cake.

Sure, when March 31, 2013, rolls around, I'll take a (small) bite. And yes, it will be nice celebrating one year of marriage. But mostly, I'll celebrate the return of space in my icebox.