Cake Cutting Gone Wrong

It's not very often that I get to hit the "novelty" characteristic when I'm writing my articles for the upcoming newspaper, but this story was just too good to pass up on. "Novelty" news stories are compromised of stories that turn your head from the unusual or extraordinary aspect, and this bride and groom's wedding day made for just that.

I first heard of the story after I saw a video being circulating around my Facebook page from multiple friends sharing it. I couldn't pass up on being the first journalist to get my hands on the story. So, I reached out to the wedding guest who filmed the video to get her thoughts, and here is a retelling of the exclusive interview below:

"So, please tell me about the incident shown in your Facebook video."

"Well, I thought it was going to be like any other wedding reception. The bride and groom have been close friends to my husband and I for a year or two now, and they've always been super sweet! The ceremony was very intimate and personal. Nobody would have expected their reception to end as violently as it did!"

"Do you know what caused the violence to occur?"

"Yes! I'm sure you're familiar with the tradition of cutting the wedding cake, where the couple cuts a piece of their cake together and feeds it to one another?"

"Of course – everyone does!"

"Exactly! Well, this bride had supposedly told her groom to take it easy when it came to feeding each other – like, she did NOT want to be cute and playful and shove it into one another's faces. But that's instead exactly what the groom did! And, boy, did his wife not take it too well. She then proceeded to shove his whole face right into their beautiful wedding cake! From there, things escalated pretty quickly into a full on reception smack down."

"What happened after the fighting started?"

"The biggest tension was between the newly married bride and groom. It took multiple people to hold them off! A guest called the police and both the bride and groom got arrested that night. Good thing is, shortly after being taken to the station, they both got released."

"Is the couple okay? Working things out?"

"Yes, I think so! I'm pretty sure the bride was just stressed and mad at her husband for ruining her makeup on her wedding day. And you would think weddings were civilized!"

The title of the article that I wrote about this couple is called “Wedding Cake Rite Leads to Arrests . . . of the New Bride and Groom" – you can find the story in your local newspaper, and now making its way into national headlines!

I want to say a special thank you to the wedding guest for taking their time out to come and chat with me about this unique experience! It's not every day that the couple gets arrested on their wedding day. But, it does make for one heck of a news story.

Author's Note: This story was based off of a TRUE wedding legend and story found in an August 1993 article of the Chicago Tribune. There was a real couple, Tracey and John O’Donnell, who were arrested on their wedding night for getting into a massive fight about their cake cutting. The claim for the legend is that "cute cake custom causes contretemps" which was proven true by this real-life couple and their wedding reception. For my story, I wanted to simply tell the legend but make it to be in the form of an interview between the journalist who wrote the story and a wedding guest who posted the video on Facebook. The scene recounted in my story from the guest is the actual way that the fight went down in real life – the bride got mad at the groom for shoving the cake in her face after she asked him not to! For my story, I wrote it like it was a "behind the scenes" of the article that was written, giving context and details into the exclusive interview they were able to get with the wedding guest and I just had to keep it in first person like my two previous stories. I hope you enjoyed it!

Photo of a bride and groom cutting a wedding cake – Taken by Wedding Photography on Unsplash

Story based off of legends taken from Snopes.com, "Our First Fight"