Getting There (with a wedding cake)

 Did I mention before that I was doing the wedding cake for my brother's (and now sister-in-law's!) wedding two weeks ago near our hometown in Pennsylvania? 

Did I mention that I was going to be baking the cake (for 170 people) in Saint Louis and flying with it to Pennsylvania?

Well, I did.

And it was stressful.

Along with the stress of baking some rather large cake layers in a less-than-perfect (read:cheap-apartment-grade-but-at-least-its-not-electric) oven, cutting the cakes into nice, even layers, freezing the cake in layers, there was much more that needed to be acquired, packed, and remembered.

I feel like I should copyright this.

© 2011 Lauren D. Reindl

Well, that wasn't so hard! Not that I really think it bares (bears? I don't know which one is grammatically correct here!) any legal clout. And I feel like I need to copyright the information, not just the picture. Any lawyers out there? I'm confused.

Anyway, this is the write-up for this particular wedding cake (which I seem to have left at home. Mom? Is it there?). And after at 4:30 wake-up (it's OK, Pepin had me up at 3 anyway), a quick pack of last minute things (including 4 frozen wedding cake layers into a Igloo Cube cooler along with an ice pack and all the sharp objects and toiletries we were taking home [since the rest of our luggage was carry-on]), we jumped in the car and headed to the airport.

Parking at the St Louis airport can be as cheap as $7 per day -- isn't that crazy?

 And this was our lovely greeting while we waited for our plane at 6am.

Our first leg out of Saint Louis was extended in the air for a bit thanks to some nasty weather that the pilot had to avoid so we ended up landing in Detroit 30 minutes late.

Leaving us, and our cooler under the plane only 30 minutes to get to the next plane to Elmira.

We made it -- Detroit is a pretty easily navigated airport -- but then I started to sweat. Would the cake make it?

Then the announcement came over the loudspeaker: "Flight *blablabla* to Elmira, New York has been delayed because the crew had been held up on another flight". I've never been so happy for a flight delay in my life.

And then the cake came. 

40 minutes after our scheduled departure we were on the ground in Elmira (or Corning...whichever it actually is).

Hello Corning/Elmira Regional Airport. So nice to see you!

My dad was there waiting for us. Unfortunately, since the man has never and will never own a cell phone, he wasn't warned that we would be late or how late we would be. It seems to be our curse that we can never get in on time from a flight (thinking back to our long trip home). 

As soon as the cake came around the conveyor belt we ripped it open and checked (it had been duct taped for the voyage) on the cake, which was fine; a bit thawed, but fine. 

45 minutes later we were home and after greeting what few family members were already at our house, Zoey (my 4-year-old niece) and I got to work on the cream cheese icing for filling in between the layers (she put in the butter). And within two hours, the four layers were filled and back in the freezer, ready to be iced the next morning.

Then we all went to the rehearsal dinner and the fun began.

Stay tuned for rehearsal fun, wedding pictures and most importantly, cake pictures!