WHEN I was a kid, my cousin Dona and I used to play in the garden when there was a downpour. She used to say she wished it rained sweet lemon juice instead. “Then we can open our mouths to the sky and drink as much of the juice from heaven.”
I don’t know if the Wedding of the Year was made in heaven. The joke is weddings made in heaven are parted in hell. I don’t wish that for the Royal Darlings of the Moment.
Online media zeroed in on Prince Harry when he bit his lip as his bride Meghan Markle was walking toward the altar. It was a way of saying, “You look heavenly.”
On May 19 the Duke of Sussex tied the royal knot with Meghan, now Duchess of Sussex. Much has been discussed about their break with tradition. For example, Meghan hugged the ex of Harry at the royal reception. Protocol demanded that Chelsey Davy should curtsy.
One symbolic break with tradition was the wedding centerpiece: the wedding cake. Despite changing times, the royals have stuck with fruitcake as the wedding cake. Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding cake was eight tiers of fruitcake.
After the cake degustation presented by Violet Cakes bakery chef Claire Ptak, Harry and Meghan chose the lemon cake because it evoked springtime.
Interestingly, lemons have a long list of meanings. In cars, a lemon is a vehicle that is riddled with manufacturing defects.
There’s the familiar “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It means you have to do something good out of a bad situation. And in general, a lemon is something worthless or not as good as passed off. So why lemon for the royal duo? Your guess is as good as mine. My sources for the following are People, Cosmo and Delish.
Their royal wedding cake was made with 200 Amalfi lemons and 10 bottles of Sandringham elderflower cordial. California-raised Ptak and six bakers assembled the lemon sponge cake.
It was drizzled with the cordial to make it moist. It was topped with Amalfi curd. Even the Swiss meringue butter cream icing was flavored with the elderflower cordial. For accent, real flowers, 150 of them, were used. Some of the flowers were roses and peonies. Ptak said the cake is a balance between the sweetness of the elderflower cordial and the tartness of the lemon curd.
The cake had three parts instead of tiers. It was deconstructing the royal wedding cake: There were two one-tier cakes and one two-tier cake, each set in its own burnished pedestal.
For a long while Harry and Meghan will be set in pedestals. But they have shown themselves to be not of the usual royal pattern. Perhaps they knew the real meaning of lemons. They symbolize purity, longevity, love and friendship.
With their wedding cake, they have added new meanings. A royal lemon wedding cake is eating springtime or celebrating life. It is going against trends and doing what you really want.