I Saved My Wedding Cake for a Baby That Took a Decade to Arrive—Big Mistake?

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When I got married many moons ago, someone told me to save a slice of my wedding cake for when my first baby was born. At the time, it sounded sweet. Sentimental. A lovely tradition to carry forward, like something out of a Jane Austen novel with a splash of Victoria sponge.

So I did it. I carefully wrapped a chunk of our fruitcake (because of course it was a fruitcake—this was the era when fondant-covered bricks were considered festive) in layers of foil, popped it into a container, and slid it to the back of the freezer like a secret waiting to be unveiled.

A year passed. No baby. I checked the cake. It was hanging in there—barely. The icing looked resentful.

Year two? Still no baby. The cake had started to resemble a geological sample. I contemplated chiselling it open.

By year five, I’d forgotten all about it. Life had moved on. Work, holidays, buying matching lamps. Occasionally, I’d remember the cake during freezer clear-outs, but it had become more fossil than food.

By the time our daughter finally arrived nearly a decade later, the tradition was in tatters. The cake was gone (binned around year six when it grew something that may have qualified as a protected species), and I wasn’t about to pretend a supermarket cupcake would pass as its symbolic stand-in.

And guess what? I don’t feel bad about it. Not even a bit. My daughter never tasted the cake, but she got a mother who finally realised that not every tradition is worth keeping.

Tradition or Trap?

Traditions are funny things. They start off with the best of intentions—something meaningful, rooted in memory or heritage. But somewhere along the way, they can morph into obligations no one dares to question.

We pass them down like heirlooms, even if they don’t fit the lives we’re living. I’ve seen brides freezing top-tier cakes they don’t even like just because “that’s what you’re supposed to do.” I’ve heard of people taking a slice to hospital to feed the midwife. Honestly. As if the poor woman isn’t already elbow-deep in someone else’s labour.

In reality, these well-meaning customs often say more about peer pressure than personal meaning. They creep into our milestones dressed as ‘the done thing,’ leaving us afraid to opt out in case someone calls us uncultured or ungrateful.

Don’t want a big wedding? Shame. Don’t want to christen the baby in the same gown worn by five generations of cousins and three ferrets? Bit rude. Didn’t save the cake? How will the child bond with their parents without that mouldy wedge of nostalgia?

Peer Pressure in a Pretty Dress

Social expectations love to masquerade as tradition. We wrap them in pretty language and tell ourselves we’re honouring something sacred, when really, we’re terrified of being the odd one out.

It starts young. At school, if you didn’t bring in sweets on your birthday, you were marked as suspect. At university, there were ‘traditions’ involving traffic cones and questionable use of whipped cream. And as adults? We just swap the props: baby showers, gender reveals, forced Christmas games.

I’m not against all traditions. Some are genuinely comforting. Lighting a candle for someone. Sunday roast. Tea after funerals. But the problem arises when we blindly follow without asking whether a particular tradition suits us.

When the cake tradition was explained to me, it was spoken of like a rite of passage. It never occurred to me to ask, “Why fruitcake? Why freezing it for years? And why is this even necessary?” No one dared question it. It was ‘just what you do.’

Bin the Cake, Keep the Meaning

Here’s what I learned. Traditions only have value when they mean something to you. If they don’t, then you’re just performing. And performances are exhausting.

My daughter may not have had a bite of our wedding cake, but she got the full story—complete with photos of the cake at various stages of freezer decay and a lecture on why it’s fine to break with convention.

She also got a mum who believes laughter matters more than doing things ’the proper way’. As she navigates adulthood I hope she saves only the traditions that bring joy, not guilt.

So next time someone hands you a well-wrapped piece of advice about what you should do at a life milestone, feel free to smile politely, say “how lovely,” then shove it to the back of the metaphorical freezer—right next to my cake.

And if it starts to go off? Bin it.

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