Weekend Wedding Planning: The Wedding Cake

I've never had a lot of specific ideas of what I want my wedding cake to look or taste like. I like the look of a croquembouche, although it's not very traditional in the US (or Northern Ireland, I'm guessing!). Although traditional tiered cakes appeal to me as well--I mostly just want everything to be edible and to taste good. It's sort of nice that I don't have a specific idea because one of Thomas's relatives will be making our cake and so on our wedding day it will just be a pleasant surprise as to what we get! I think I'd enjoy turning over a few more wedding details to other people and then showing up on the big day and seeing what people prepared for us!
A fun wedding cake origin story: I read before that one of the first incarnations of the wedding cake was a pile of sweet rolls; guests would bring sweet rolls which were stacked on top of each other. This tradition dates back to Medieval England where cakes were stacked as high as possible and then the bride and groom were to attempt to kiss over the sweets pile--if they successfully kissed over the stack (without knocking it over) they were guaranteed a prosperous life together.
Wedding cake superstitions: There seems to be a lot of superstitious surrounding weddings and the cake is no exception. Apparently hopeful bridesmaids should sleep with a piece of cake underneath their pillow if they want to be the next to marry. And newly married couples might try to keep a piece of the cake until their first anniversary to prevent marriage problems in the future--although no need to keep it under their pillow (thank goodness).

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