I knew from the very start that I didn’t want a big fancy wedding cake.

I had ideas, kids. Lord, did I have them. What if I baked my famous chocolate chip cookies for dessert? We would only need, oh, say, 300 of them. Guests could take the extras home! I even put together a spreadsheet that detailed the cost of each cookie ingredient.* Yes, I priced it out with the Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips. I’m a baking snob like that.

I was so excited about my cookie idea that I mentioned it to my coworker. She was aghast. “You can’t have cookies at your wedding!” she nearly howled with indignation. And why is this? “Because you can have cookies any day. A cake is special. If you don’t get a cake, you’re totally going to regret it.”

Right, then.

My cookies bring, um, all the guests to the, uh… reception?

You know, I’ve seen those reality shows about professional bakers—they make the actual edible part, the cake, days in advance of the event, then drape it in fondant. Which reminds me of nothing so much as the rind on brie cheese, only sweeter. Who wants to gnaw on senescent cake ensconced in sugar wax? I know they can conjure some kick-ass designs on those things, but damn son. I don’t care about what the thing looks like. I care about what it tastes like.

So. I am blithely ignoring the advice of Mrs. FancyPants McCakeFan. Of course, I am well aware that this decision will most surely spark the ire of our guests and hasten the ultimate failure of our marriage. I can see it all now. The dessert table overturned, chairs smashed against the Very Important Historical Fountains That No One Should Look At Lest We Lose Our $89,347** Deposit. Babies crying. Friends and family in a sweaty panic, searching for The Cake. “Where is the fondant?!?” they will shriek. “WE WANT THE FONDANT!!” Our photographers will glower. “You were supposed to cut a big ass cake, and then smear it on each other’s faces,” they’ll hiss. Tables will go up in flames. “You could have DIY’ed cute bride and groom birds as cake toppers,” my inconsolable mother will sob into a napkin. A mere three months later, the beau and I will quietly, humiliatingly, file for divorce. Everyone will roll their eyes. “We knew that was coming,” they will collectively mutter. “You can’t expect it to last long when those cheap, miserable bastards didn’t even bother to serve us a freakin’ wedding cake.”

Well! Anyway! That was fun.

After the incident with McCakeFan — but not because of it — I kind of dropped the cookie idea. My burning desire for cookies still throbs deep in my loins, of course. It’s just that I sort of fell out of love with the idea of baking six or seven batches of them on the day before the wedding. I mean, we already have flowers to arrange. And a rehearsal picnic to set up. And several panic attacks to have. Really, I consulted the planner. They are scheduled for 9:14 am, 2:37 pm, and 4:54 pm, respectively. I also penciled in a 10:08 for good measure.

This leaves us with a multitude of wedding dessert goodies to buy instead of bake. Mmm. Goodies. Now, to pick which ones.

We’ve considered serving a variety of pies. In fact, we know somebody who could make them from scratch, and how cool is that? Also, an awesome person volunteered to make homemade ice cream for our reception. Um, yes please? The only problem I foresee is keeping it cold. So that may not pan out. But if it did, we could serve it with brownies or pie alike. Mmm. Brownies. Glaiiigh.

Doughnuts are, as always, a strong contender. And not just because they’re currently sort of a trend. Besides, we all talked about this already and we decided we don’t care about trends, right? There is no need to avoid them out of spite.

However. Unlike Mouse, we do not have a superlative doughnut*** shop nestled inside our fair city. What we have is a smattering of average ones. Is this enough to turn me off of the doughnut thing? The jury is out. There is a bit more evidence to weigh by way of tasting samples. And then the jury might have to sample them all again. Just to, uh, you know. Check.

True fact: I once seriously entertained the idea of having the wedding in Portland, Oregon, where the beau is from, just so we could get some Voodoo doughnuts for the wedding. Yes, believe the hype.

Portrait of a Voodoo Doughnut classic: the Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Chocolate, peanut butter, crushed Oreos. Divinely supreme.

Spill it. What wedding dessert(s) are you lusting after? Have you already picked them out? Were you terribly offended by my anti-fondant rant? Were you terribly confused about the paragraph where the guests were rioting, and then I got a divorce?

Don’t worry. I was too.

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* Sadly, I did this six months before we even got engaged. That is how reverently I regard wedding dessert.

** I lied. Fine. Our $1,143,799.23 deposit.

*** Or, in the parlance of our times, “Do-nut.”