Bride walks out on her own wedding after the groom smashed a cake in her face, and she’s not the first one!
Whether it is the idea of eternal love, the enchanted locations, the gorgeous flower arrangements, or the massive amounts of alcohol that get poured around, it is undeniable that weddings have a certain magic to them. While historically rooted in the trade and commodification of women, the ceremony has since rebranded itself as a holy union with the promise of lifelong companionship. Sweet.
Yet, some brides have decided that they will not accept this proposition at the cost of being publicly embarrassed and humiliated. After several grooms took it upon themselves to smash wedding cake into their newlywed’s faces, they were surprised to witness their brides walk out on them…
On 12 August 2023, TikToker Louisa Melcher shared that she decided to annul her marriage after her new husband pulled this prank on her during their wedding party.
@loulouorange Also, he chased after me with a Wet Wipe and ended up splitting his tux pants… Like PLEASE if I didn’t have the ick before… 🤢 #wedding #weddingcake #bride #cakesmash
♬ I'll Do It (Sped Up Remix) - Heidi Montag
“He smashed a wedding cake on my face and ruined my $1,600 bridal makeup. But he actually ended up saving me $50,000 in divorce fees (and half my net worth) by showing how little he respected me nice and early so I could still qualify for an annulment. I left our reception venue without saying a word and filed the paperwork in the Uber home,” the text in the video reads.
The video’s caption added: “Also, he chased after me with a Wet Wipe and ended up splitting his tux pants… Like please if I didn’t have the ick before…”
Unsurprisingly, the comments under Melcher’s video, which has been seen by over 14.1 million people, were quite divisive. Some users applauded her for leaving her marriage at the first sign of abuse. However, others questioned why Melcher and her ex-husband didn’t set clear boundaries and expectations for the day. A couple of people also wondered how wedding make-up could be worth $1,600. She better have looked unbelievably divine. That’s all I’m saying…
“Respect… I wish I had done this,” one TikTok user shared. “If they disrespect you in front of your family and friends then what’s it going to be like behind closed doors?” another user agreed.
“That’s literally a wedding tradition,” one user critiqued though. “You sound like fun,” a different TikToker heckled. “Do people not speak to one another before they marry?” someone else questioned.
While it is surprising that signs of incompatibility stayed hidden for this long into a relationship only to reveal themselves at a wedding ceremony, the broad consensus seemed to be that a woman’s decision to leave a bad relationship should never be treated as a wrong one.
The controversy surrounding cake smashing intensified when another video of a scorned bride went viral:
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The woman in question made it explicitly clear to her future husband prior to the wedding that she had one rule: no cake-smashing, as she suffered from claustrophobia stemming from a car accident. In the video from the wedding, she can be seen asking her partner not to shove the cake into her face. When it looks like he is still about to, the couple starts wringing back and forth until he finally places a piece of cake on her face with force. Stunned by her husband’s actions, the bride walks out on him while forming two peace signs with her hands. Divorce papers were filed on the next day.
I read this article how a woman divorced her husband a day after their wedding because she told him her one rule was to not smash cake in her face since she’s claustrophobic from a car accident & guess what he did…he smashed her face into their wedding cake 🤦🏾♀️
— 🍁 (@Hibzster) August 11, 2023
Similarly, a bride on the popular subreddit forum “Am I the Asshole” explained that she had an uncomfortable “history with cake smashing” that her new husband did not care to respect.
The bride said that when she was 17 years old, her mother wanted to push her face into her birthday cake because it was a family tradition. The teenager didn’t want to ruin her hair and makeup, so she attempted to refuse but her mother convinced her to do it anyway.
“As I blew out my candles, my mom pushed my head into the cake and one of the decorations on the cake ended up slicing my forehead,” the Reddit user wrote. “Not enough to go to the hospital, but enough for some substantial bleeding. My birthday was ruined and after I wouldn’t come out of my room. My mom still calls me a brat for that.”
After she shared the story with her partner, he would constantly show her videos of brides getting covered in wedding cake, instead of being sympathetic to her trauma.
“I told him if he ever did something like that to me I’d leave him. He started laughing, but I was being for real. Though, he really was not taking me seriously,” she continued.
Fast forward to the day of her wedding, when a cake was smashed into her face anyway. As the crowd started laughing at her, including her family, the bride walked away and got into an Uber. She was staying at a friend’s house at the time of writing the Reddit post in September 2023.
According to Twitter user Dean Willy, cake smashing is just a way to humiliate and physically assault women under the guise of playfulness.
A chance to humiliate and/or physically assault your partner under the guise of playfulness. Common abuse tactic. Everyone around will invalidate the bride’s feelings because he was “just playing” & she should “lighten up”. https://t.co/xJmrEl4iCC
— I appreciate you. (@DeeLaSheeArt) August 12, 2023
It asks them to laugh at their own humiliation and casts them as dull, difficult and humdrum if they refuse to participate.
The concept of weddings is quite misogynistic as aforementioned. From the white dress and veil, because the bride is a virginal gift to be given away, to rings that signal possession, and the father that walks the woman down the aisle, because she is a commodity being given away from one man to another, they still reproduce the memory of a deeply patriarchal past. Despite weddings evolving towards greater respect, inclusivity, and symbolism of love, traditions like these show that there is still a violent and misogynistic undertone to the ceremony.
