Beautiful Wedding Cake Mystery Solved: 63 Years Later Couple Reveals What’s Inside

Couple reveals mystery of what inside the top tier of their wedding cake from 63 years ago.

Wedding cake mystery

It was a mystery more than 60 years in the making.

     More than 60 years since LaMar and Julia married.

     More than 60 years since they saved the top tier of their wedding cake.

     Instead of eating it on their first anniversary, they kept it.

     Pretty much forever.

     For their forever.

     Four grown kids.

     Five grands.

     One great grand.

     Seven moves.

     Two countries.

     Each of those moves the cake tier has come with them, wrapped in several layers of plastic and sealed inside a metal tin.

Loving couple LaMar and Julia with the top tier of their wedding cake 63 years after they married.
Loving couple LaMar and Julia with the top tier of their wedding cake 63 years after they married. Credit: Chris McGinnis.

     It has lived in the back of every freezer of every house they’ve ever lived in.

     “It’s just something that was there,” one of their sons told me this week. “Friends would say, ‘That’s weird.’ But to us it was just the old cake tin in the back of the freezer.”

Decades long discussion

     They’d talk about it each anniversary.

     Eat it?

     Never.

     Sure, it inspired questions over the years like, “What was the flavor inside?”

     “Fruitcake,” Julia always insisted.

     Fruitcake?

     Mom couldn’t be right.

The fruitcake theory

Who has fruitcake inside their wedding cake?

“Fruitcake,” Mom kept insisting.

For decades it was easy to slough off her guess to just being wrong.

In recent years, there’s more to raise eyebrows.

     Now, there was the issue of Mom’s memory.

     It had been slipping.

     The dementia diagnosis a couple years ago informed the family this was something bigger than just forgetfulness.

     It has only brought this couple closer.

True devotion

Couple reveals mystery of what inside the top tier of their wedding cake from 63 years ago.

     “They are absolutely devoted to each other,” their son shared. “She was by his side for his entire career as a prominent surgeon. Now, he’s by her side, not letting anyone else take care of her.”

     So, there they sat this week on the occasion of LaMar’s 90th birthday.

     Sitting around a table at their daughter’s house.

     All four children gathered round.

     All of the them, staring at the cake.

     Still in the tin, of course.

Do you dare?

     The question raised a notch.

     “Do we dare cut into it?”

     The mystery of the cake seemed like the lucky charm that has blessed this marriage.

     Look what’s inside?

     If not now, then when?

     And so, they went for it.

     In one respect it wasn’t so easy.

     The cake had petrified.

     “My dad and I had to hack at it with a screwdriver and a hammer,” Son laughed.

     Yet, there it was inside: fruitcake.

Proof is in the fruitcake. The inside of the wedding cake revealed after 63 years.
Proof is in the fruitcake. The inside of the wedding cake revealed after 63 years. Credit: Chris McGinnis.

Mom is always right

   Mom had been right all along.

     The sight took her right back to a place she’s not able to go to much these days.

     Her memory.

     She shared so many details as their wedding day came into full focus.

     How it had rained.

How beautiful her dress was.

     How she married the love of her life.

     There they sat side by side letting the memories wash over them.

Proof is in the fruitcake. The inside of the wedding cake revealed after 63 years.
Proof is in the fruitcake. The inside of the wedding cake revealed after 63 years. Credit: Chris McGinnis.

     Hands clasped.

     Which, of course, is the real answer.

     What’s inside?

     What’s really inside?

     That’s long been plain to see.

     A great, devoted love.

     Her by his side. His by hers.

     It’s traveled with them all these decades.

     A cake story,

Life,

I’m convinced it doesn’t get any sweeter than that.

While you’re here…

If you like this story, you might enjoy my book,

“Hope Possible: A Network News Anchor’s Thoughts On Losing Her Job, Finding Love, A New Career, And My Dog, Always My Dog.”

final front cover

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Beautiful Wedding Cake Mystery Solved: 63 Years Later Couple Reveals What’s Inside

by DarynKagan time to read: 4 min
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