Wedding cake clone of bride
Chidi Ogbuta of Allen, Texas, always wanted a doll of herself. So she had her wedding cake created in her image. According to the I-Report she submitted to CNN, one pastry chef made the body while someone from another city created the head. I'll leave the "Eat me!" jokes for the comments. Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)
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You *CAN* have your cake and eat her too!
this picture shows the groom stabbing the effigy of the bride.
The husband looks scared. REALLY scared.
That is just wrong for so many reasons.
@ #4
I was going to say the same thing. The poor guy looks totally creeped out. I wonder if it's the cake itself that's creeping him out, or the idea that everyone's going to be watching him cut into his "wife" and keeping it on file for any future murder investigations.
The groom's expression struck me as a "Dear lord, I've married a lunatic." realization.
#6:
Probably, he's just at that moment realized how unashamedly self-centered his new bride is and what that likely forebodes for his own future.
He's staring right at the cake's breasts. I betcha he's wishing for a weird threesome about now...
Nigerian(and African) wedding traditions are not Texan.
Given where his eyes are focused, I kinda thought it was a "Helllll yeah!" look.
which part of this goes in the freezer for the X aniversary? I hope it's the head.
When this hit Digg, a few weeks ago, I think it was titled "Photo of a man making the biggest mistake of his life".
Sorry dude, you just married a crazy person!
She doesn't look all that happy either. Maybe she realized just then that the cake looks better than she does.
He doesn't look scared at all to me. She looks a bit anxious, but it may be that she's just gotten married and is trying not to cry while pictures are going on.
Also, she's the one holding the knife.
"BRAINS!!!!"
@ #6: This is not an uncommon expression for wedding participants of either sex, surely? It's not a ceremony that brings out the best in people...
That is the ugliest wedding dress EVER!
Unfortunately, she asked him: "Does my butt look big in that cake?" and they were divorced the next day.
Sad, but true. ;-D
Good Luck, dude. You're gonna need it.
When I saw this story last week, the "Most Viewed" story (on the right side of the page) was something about some cannibal murderer.
I think the cake is incredibly cool. I hope it catches on. It reminds me of the highly decorated carved coffins of Ghana.
Another example of how weddings have become an orgy of selfishness for pathologically self-centered brides.
There is really no male equivelant to the wedding. 50 to 500 grand for a one day party where nobody has fun and the napkins arriving in the wrong color can destroy the whole thing.
All so the bride can feel like a princess for the day.
Eat the face! Eat the face! Be the face-eating zombie groom!
"I'd like a slice of front temporal lobe please. What do you mean she has no brain? Fine, just give me a thin slice of the under-chin fat. I just hope it's real butter cream."
I'm a longtime reader of Boing Boing who's never felt the need to add comments to a post. This one changed my mind, as the insidious "chocolate" comments deserve rebuke.
Earlier today, one written in a kind of profoundly ignorant Massa-speak was deleted. The same ought to go for numbers 24 and 18 above. Better yet, our moderator could delete them both and explain why that kind of discourse doesn't meet community standards.
I agree with #28.
Thanks for listening. (Current) numbers 24 and 18, I assume you understand I wasn't speaking about your posts.
I guess some guys dig narcissism.
If I took out all the dumb misogynistic comments, this thread would be in tatters. I'm also amazed at how much some commenters are reading into the photo and story. The groom doesn't look especially stunned or worried, the bride doesn't look like she's on a rampage, and anyone who thinks that's the ugliest wedding dress ever can't have studied the subject.
BDGBill, got any more cliches about modern weddings? It looks like you're trying to collect the set.
I'm with Joey Harrison (23): I think it's cool, it reminds me of the great carved effigy coffins they make in Ghana, and I hope more people do weird inventive stuff like this for their weddings.
You know what that bride isn't doing? She isn't letting herself be buffaloed into an expensive lace-and-frosting-roses cake out of the bakery's wedding book. She knows what she wants. Good for her.
Movable Type doesn't assign fixed numbers to comments. If a comment gets deleted, the rest of the thread renumbers from that point. It's frustrating.
Ya know... this cake could make for the best sploshing session ever!
It's like a real doll, only cake!
There is no way I could keep a straight face at that wedding. I'm very very prone to the giggle loop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iKjkPgVQcE
I've missed doctor appointments because the waiting room was too much to bear. (Dear lady with the lazy eye {who oddly enough was reading a weddding mag} at the optometrist's I'm very very very very sorry when the assistant asked for Ms. Bitkus)
I dunno. there's still something really creepy about eating a piece of yourself at your wedding. Girl got what she wanted at all, but it just seems a wee bit odd...
And will it get weird if people ask for certain pieces? "hi, I'd like a slice of the left cheek?" "I'd like a pinky?"
I do agree that at least she did what she wanted. Even if it's freaking me out right now.
"you wanna piece of me??!!"
Note to self: Do not plan wedding while watching ST:TNG reruns.
I love it!
Can't you see a trend brewing? Ex Texas cheerleaders baked wearing their uniforms. Bride & groom double frosting cakes. The bride and her maid-of-honor BFF.
The groom looks amused to me. I would have loved a cake like that at my wedding.
But with my wife's image, not Chidi's.
I have three separate comments that I must express:
1. The cake has a bigger rack than the actual bride.
2. That stomacher and that dress do NOT match.
3. As cool and skillfully made the cake is, there's something very disturbing about serving a piece of yourself to all your guests. And what part of the cake exactly do you save for your anniversary? The head? (Of course, this is coming from a girl who wants a coffin cake for her own wedding.) *a-hem* >.>
Man, that's scary.
I'd feel really weird eating something that looked so human. Hell, it'd be worse watching people eat something that looks like me. Sheesh.
This is the wrong post to read after seeing Sweeney Todd.
That said, I like #23(BDGBill), #36(Deweyeyed) and #38's(AnthropormorphicToast) ideas.
/really wants to get married, no takers though.
What is funny to me is just how much the sugary duplicate looks like a Second Life rendition of the bride...
I wish I could find the place I originally read about this- it mentioned that the couple are originally from Africa and that this type of cake is an accepted custom in their home country. So, no, this is not modern popculture bridezilla gone mad.
"If I took out all the dumb misogynistic comments, this thread would be in tatters."
...Yeah, well, it's bad enough that you actually deleted a *LEGITIMATE* question I posed. *Was* the cake a chocolate one, or did they go traditional wedding white and then use a chocolate frosting? It's a serious question.
[shakes head in utter dismay]
@ Ms. Theresa Nielsen-Hayden
I'm sorry you feel that my post was full of cliches but I happen to know what I'm talking about.
My Bridezilla mother has been married five times. Each time with a big church wedding. I have two friends still paying for weddings which produced marriages which no longer exist.
Modern weddings are an insane waste of money.
I'm eagerly awaiting a post on engagement rings.
"50 to 500 grand for a one day party"
Man, where'd you get married? My wedding was plenty cheap. 50 to 500 grand would buy the happy couple a new house.
@ Squashy
I have not gotten married. My girlfriend and I are happily living in sin.
If your wedding was cheap I assume you got married at home. Your wife must be unusually practical. The most (only) enjoyable wedding reception I ever attended was a low key affair at someones home. That was about 10 years ago and the couple is still together.
I agree with your idea of using the money for a down payment on a home rather than a fancy wedding.
Going deeply into debt for a party is no way to start a life together.
#30. It seems there are actually dresses that are nearly as ugly as this bride's creation! This cake is a typical cultural grotesque. This bride must be an American.
The woman who sculpted the head has a flickr account. She has the creation process documented:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9269103@N08/sets/72157601895489988/
Seriously, WTF?!
Usually the married couple serve the the cake at the wedding. Imagine the embarassment of being served a boob, or the, ah, "flower" piece!
And usually the couple save the top tier of the wedding cake and freeze it for their 1 year anniversary. I guess they're gonna save the head in their freezer?!
And the bride reported this to CNN?! Okaaaaaay...
Remember Tom Petty's music video "Don't Come Around Here No More" where Alice in Wonderland turns into a cake and Tom Petty (as the Mad Hatter) and friends eat her? Talk about life imitating art!
gmr2048 wins the thread by posting the Flickr link, from which we learn that the head part is a "Life-size polymer clay portrait sculpture" and therefore not edible. The idea of someone eating the bride's face was what was squicking me and some of the other commenters out.
And the groom probably thought he'd be eating some pie that night...
#9:
Squares are not circles.
Maybe it's the angle, but he looks dubious to me.
...as I think most any sane man would be when being asked to carve into a giant effigy cake of the woman he just married.
Now you can have your wedding and reenact a Tibetan sky burial all at once!
1. What is this, National Forget How to Google Week?
When your assumptions are questioned, don't just keep insisting you must be right -- go check stuff out!
The bride and groom are Chidi Ogbuta and Innocent Ogbuta, and they've been married for ten years. They're Nigerian. This is a renewal-of-vows ceremony.
Innocent Ogbuta was in on it all along, and had no objections:
Here's his account of the guests' reactions:Since the cake got eaten over the next week by their many guests who dropped by, I don't think this can have been an entirely American-style wedding.A video.
An account of sculpting it, with a Flickr photoset from the woman who created the portrait head. (Thank you, GMR2048.)
A collection of stories about the cake.
A mildly indignant editorial in Najiawire about some of the negative reactions to the cake.
2. What, you never saw a 1:1 portrait cake before?
Next you'll be telling me you've never heard of Roland A. Winbeckler, who's been doing exactly that for years. His creations include Cher, Colonel Sanders, Princess Diana, Elvis, George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Wayne Gretzky, Marilyn Monroe, a Tiger, a Viking, and some guy named Bernie.
Since 1965, the Minnesota State Fair has been sculpting full-size portrait heads in butter of the twelve finalists for the title of Dairy Princess, a.k.a. Princess Kay of the Milky Way.
The Ogbutas may be Nigerian, but they're living in Texas, which has its own indigenous tradition of over-the-top wedding cakes. The mighty Earlene Moore of Lubbock, Texas is no longer making cakes for the public, but she has very kindly left up her extensive website. Her wedding cakes are gorgeous, but check out her groom's cakes, special occasion cakes, and sugar art.
(I blogged about Earlene Moore, Ronald A. Winbeckler, and other food artists back in 2001. I'm linking to those posts -- 1, 2 -- solely because they include more detailed info about where to find interesting stuff on these sites I'm listing.)
Extreme cake can happen anywhere. Some additional artists:
Mike's Amazing Cakes
The Cake Diva.
Cliff Simon: 1, 2, 3.
And for those of you who think elaborate confectionary presentations at parties are obviously a symptom of this or that modern aberration: from the Surname-i Vehbi, here are three double-page spreads of illustrations documenting the festival-trees, candy-gardens, and edible sculptures created for a 1720 circumcision parade.
3. Onward.
AnthropomorphicToast (38), Cefeida (42): Exactly.
Om (43):
Malarkey, Om. It was clear from the way you phrased the comment that you knew you were being transgressive.Also: you see an outrageous cake that's a 1:1 portrait of the bride, and your first thought is to wonder about the flavor of the underlying cake? Which, you say, has nothing to do with the color of the bride's skin?
Why are you even trying this?
BDGBill (44): I'm sorry your mother commits cliches, but your mother and your friends are not the world. They're certainly not Chidi and Innocent Ogbuta, who don't deserve to have all the sins of your acquaintances wished on them.
Also, I'm tired of getting hurt e-mail from Boing Boing readers who've been mentioned in an entry and been treated with unthinking rudeness in the comment thread. I don't think we're going to be hearing from the Ogbutas, or at any rate we haven't heard from them yet; but it happens. I wish more readers would remember, when they're talking about someone, that they might also be talking to them. I don't demand sweetness and light; just mindfulness.
The entry about the marketing of diamond engagement rings went up in February 2006. I'm sorry you missed it.
Jeff (47), got anything to add?
I'm with #49 - this is Wrong. Anyway, he looks happier than her - maybe it was his idea?
Ok, if deeper analysis is required, so be it.
I paste a couple of quotes from Innocent:
“It was something that she liked and if there was a way to make it happen, why not?” he said. “It was fun.”
“I love her, and I felt that if that was what she wanted, it was not a big deal to me,” he said.
The article also says:
Innocent said he was just trying to make his wife happy.
None of that language gives me the sense that there was any sort of genuine enthusiasm for the idea on his part. Quite the opposite. I think, if she had changed her mind, he would have been relieved.
Of *course* he is not going to badmouth her choice in the media. He'd have to be a real tool to go that route.
However, he's talking about the cake in the same way that most men would when graciously describing a lengthy ballroom dance class that they didn't want to attend, but took for their wives' sake.
Hence, I maintain my original opinion that he had a dubious look in the picture. I know I would.
Actually, I just wouldn't marry someone who was narcissistic enough to want a giant cake of herself in the first place. Any existing tradition of giant and/or effigy cakes doesn't change the fact that it's a remarkably self-focused gesture.
Okay, INOX, that's your opinion. Happens I think you're being provincial. You'd never have a huge outlandish cake, and it wouldn't make you happy. Can you not imagine it might be otherwise for someone else?
I know love can be blind and all that, but somewhere in the future other more serious behavioral pathologies will start to emerge, and this poor guy is going to have to unravel a quagmire of strange behaviors and the psychology therein.
I do genuinely feel sorry for the groom.
My message to this fellow would be, "ever hear the term red flag"?
This, my friend, is a glaring red flag of the most ominous sort. Best of luck on this one - you'll need it!
Of course it's my opinion. However, pointing that out doesn't mean that it reflects reality any less.
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Where's the line? If the bride wanted to be borne about in a palanquin, or wanted a cake entirely covered in gold leaf and semiprecious stones, would that then be considered too selfish and demanding? ...or would that just be a reasonable request for Her Special Day(tm)?
If it makes me provincial to think that wanting an effigy cake is unreasonable, so be it.
Further, while cultures vary widely as to wedding customs, one of the key elements is the acknowledgment and celebration of the couple's union.
Even where weddings last for days, or where a palanquin *might* be the norm, if you make a wedding bigger or longer, the focus remains on the pair.
Here, you can see that she's dialed it up a bit with the cake, but it's all about *her*. Why not a bust of both of them, rather than just one large cake of her?
I can't help but feel that her Queen for a Day desire will play out in other negative ways in the years to come. Any relationship that isn't a true partnership won't be big on equity and/or respect.