Fake wedding cakes help the bridal budget

Now that Christmas is behind us, it's time to plan for the other big yearly celebration; June weddings! Thanks to the Boston Globe, I've been made aware of a great money-saving option for those parents of the bride still conscious after totaling up the costs of unloading giving over to matrimony your bundle of joy.

The price of modern wedding cakes can easily hit $500 or more, depending on the architecture and square footage. When you see the newlyweds grind $100 or so of this treasure into one another's faces, you may ask yourself if this is a wise use of your money. Obviously, many have answered no, the inspiration behind the fake wedding cake.

This cake, made of plastic foam and other durable materials and iced to look like the real thing, includes a discrete hatch in the bottom layer. Behind this hatch is secreted a piece of real cake which the bride or groom can grab for the ritual mutual feeding. Once this is accomplished, the faux cake is wheeled away to be 'cut' (you choose whether or not to let the guests in on the charade). At this point, slices of an inexpensive sheet cake can be substituted, while the fake cake is put away for the next ceremony.

I'm not a big fan of wedding ceremony, so this makes perfect sense to me. The question is, however, will the bride's mother accept the substitution? We all know she has the final word.