Can I tell you a story?

It involves drinking wine and eating cake.

I thought that would get your attention.

When planning my wedding, I was dead set on having a wine barrel as the cake table.  Well, actually first I was set on a vintage tea cart.  I found a really cute one last fall but after our cake tasting, I realized how large and in charge our 4-tier birch log inspired pound cake would be.  Out with the cutesy tea cart and in with the wine barrel idea.  Serious stature.

So the wedding was rapidly approaching when I went on my Bucks county wine tour bachelorette party in April. Which was a blast by the way.  Then again, drinking wine in the middle of the day always is.  A group of friends and I boarded a Tastings & Tours bus which picked us up right at my house and took us around beautiful Bucks county.  (They also do wine tours in Cape May!)

Are you thinking what I was thinking?  Duh.  We were on a winery tour and I needed a wine barrel.

Enter my new favorite Bucks county winery, Buckingham Valley Vineyards, known for their sweet wines and laid back attitudes.  Oh yeah and their FREE tastings and incredible prices.  No this isn’t a sponsored post.  Well, I guess in a way it is…

I did what any cake table-less bride would do.  I asked the proprietor if he sells or rents wine barrels.  I explained my predicament to him and my desire to have a rustic wine barrel at my reception.  Do you know what happened next?

Yup, there was a wine barrel in the back of the tour bus.  Before I even finished my third tasting.

And even more amazing is that it was a total loaner barrel.  The vineyard didn’t charge me anything for it.  In fact he didn’t even take my name.  He simply asked for my word that I would indeed return it.

That is what this country is built on.  Honesty and trust, my friends.

And wine and cake too.  Dream come true.

Don’t worry we returned that barrel promptly after our honeymoon sans the wine tour bus.  We didn’t leave empty handed in exchange for Buckingham Valley Vineyard’s gratitude.

If you are planning a wedding and considering this move, let me just tell you the reality of transporting and storing a wine barrel.  It is a BEAST.  I know that and I am pretty sure I never even lifted it.  And it took up like 20% of the garage while we were storing it.

Plus about 3 days before the wedding, I panicked that the top of the barrel wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate the cake.  I quickly ordered a custom piece of glass to be cut which roughly cost about 5 times the price of renting a standard cake table.  But hey, who’s keeping track?

Moral of the story:  You’ll never know unless you ask.

All of the incredible cake images by Love Shack Photo