SOUTHERN TRADITIONS
Charmed with a Cake Pull
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raditions in the South abound throughout its varying locales, events, and families. One of these traditions, for example, regards the follow-up to receiving a gift or other act of kindness; this traditional response is to send the giver a hand-written note of appreciation, often penned on attractive stationery personalized with initials or a name, and tucked into a textured and lined envelope with its embossed return address. Long fallen by the wayside, though, are such traditions as tea-time visits and visits with neighbors outside on the porch near a day’s end. Primary among Southern traditions are those associated with weddings: having a unity candle at the ceremony, orchestrating the first dances, cutting the bride’s and groom’s cakes, toasting, tossing the bride’s bouquet and the groom’s garter, and celebrating the couple’s departure with a sendoff of well-wishes for their good fortune by tossing rose petals or waving sparklers, flags, or glowing batons. Also, as Southerners know, is the wedding tradition of the Cake Pull. The source of the Cake Pull dates to England’s Victorian custom of “ribbon pulling.” Traditionally, silver charms of luck and good fortune, chosen by the bride for her single bridesmaids, were placed inside the wedding cake; and before the cutting of this cake, these ladies, each holding a ribbon attached to a charm, in unison pulled the ribbons to discover their symbolic charms and future fortunes. Today, this tradition is customary during the Bridal Luncheon honoring the bride and her attendants the day of or day before the wedding. Following the luncheon meal, the bride and bridesmaids (single and married) gather around a dessert cake under which the ribboned silver charms have been placed. Other traditions observe the Cake Pull during the wedding reception with the ribboned charms having been placed in the wedding cake for the bride’s single friends to pull for predictions of their future good fortune. All the individual ribbons and charms have a special card attached that gives the meaning of the charm, or the host may read the meanings from a master card. Cake Pull packets are available in most bridal shops and bakeries or online.
Page 18 { January/February 2022 { Bluffs & Bayous
