Sunday's wedding cake delivery was even more eventful when I opened the van door at the hotel and discovered the bottom tier of the cake had serious seismic activity occur along its fault lines and it was basically a mess. After having a short stationary panic I took the cake back home, (taking an extra fifteen minutes or so when my addled brain forgot about the construction on the freeway exit) to deconstruct the cake, straighten out and refrost the tier. Thank goodness I had a lot of extra icing leftover when I finished the cake the first time. Then it was back to the hotel to reconstruct and redecorate the cake in the hotel kitchen. Two hours later and still a half hour before the bridal cake cutting, the cake was presented at the reception looking almost as good as its first incarnation and hopefully the wedding party didn't know the difference.
So my very first wedding cake delivery disaster was an educational experience as all disasters should be. I had started becoming too complacent in the assumption of cake stability because things had never gone wrong before. No more. I don't care how many people are tailgating me as I ease up to a stop sign on a mountain road or cautiously creep around a turn....there's cake in here people and I'm not speeding up. And I won't be honoring any more requests for extra thick layers of fruit filling which only give the cake layers more goo to slide around on.
One nervous breakdown is enough to learn my lesson.