There’s been a lot of stories lately about grooms assaulting their brides with wedding cakes. Not trying to feed the bride some cake then missing and hitting her cheek. Not taking the cut piece and smushing it into her mouth. I’m talking about this.

This has gotten a lot of people divided. Some are saying it’s a harmless prank. Others say this crosses a line, even if the bride is cool with smashing the cake. Others still say, “Hey, I wanted some cake, what the fuck?” Why is this even a thing?

How did this start?

The act of smashing someone with cake traces back (possibly) to the ancient Romans. Historians say that the groom would crumble a small barley cake over his wife’s head to encourage fertility in their marriage. (Ceres, Roman goddess of fertility and agriculture, might have been a factor as well, but I’m not sure.) Then, the couple would eat some of the crumbly bits of cake together. This continued through the ages and across continents. Mostly, the focus was on the crumbs of the cake. Lots of crumbs symbolized a long, fruitful marriage full of kids. If wedding guests picked up some crumbs, it meant good luck for the wedding guests.

The act of breaking a small cake over your wife’s head led to such other acts as sharing the wedding cake with family, cutting the cake together as a couple, and feeding cake to your spouse. There was even a tradition in medieval England where the couple shared their big kiss over a pile of spiced buns, and if the pile fell over, the marriage was basically doomed. But, it seems likely that the whole “smashing cake in your spouse’s face” thing came as a result of trying to feed the cake to them, and just screwing up. Despite the day being perfect, you and your new spouse had a little oopsy and now there’s a bit of frosting on their cheeks. A funny, sort of cute trend was born.

And like most trends, it got worse.

Where are we now?

Much like gender reveal parties, the cake part of the wedding is escalating in terms of ridiculousness and legality. A bride tries to tease her groom with the cake by pulling the piece away before he can bite it. He responds by slapping her in the face. Elsewhere, a groom shoves his whole arm into a multi tiered cake while cackling like the Joker. The bride is shocked, and the reception hall goes silent.

And of course, multiple grooms are grabbing almost the whole cake, then power-slamming it onto their brides.

It seems like people are trying to outdo other couples they see online in terms of random bullshit to pull at weddings. “I want this to go viral at my partner’s expense! Surely this is the best start to our new lives!”

And people are divided because?

People who support this tradition are saying that any brides that complain about cake smashing can’t take a joke. If the groom is an admitted prankster, the bride shouldn’t be surprised if she ends up being the target of a prank. Others say there is no harm in the newlyweds messing around with each other, because what’s a good relationship if you can’t goof on your sweetheart? “Don’t be such a controlling bridezilla and have fun with it!” Also, the tradition of cake smashing has been around for centuries, and it likely isn’t going away. “You get rid of cake smashing, next you’ll be saying to get rid of bouquet tossing!”

Many opponents of cake smashing say that aside from it just being poor etiquette, it isn’t funny. A lot of the videos of brides getting attacked with cake show the bride running away or trying to shield herself. Meaning, she did not want to get smashed with cake. There are a few brides that say from the jump that they will not tolerate the cake-smashing. A lot of money went into their hair, makeup, and dress, and they likely still need to take pictures afterward. There have even been a few instances of brides actually getting hurt through acts of cake abuse. Tiered cakes are held up with plastic sticks or boba straws. Guess what happens when you shove someone’s head into that? There was even a guy who was still holding the knife when he attacked his wife with the cake, and ended up cutting her arm.

People also talk about this behavior (and to a lesser extent, the whole tradition) having sexist undertones. Primarily, it’s the grooms destroying the cakes and throwing it at the brides. Brides still smash cake into their groom’s faces, but they don’t seem to be chucking all 3 tiers of pastry and fondant at them. Grooms get called selfish, immature, or narcissistic for doing something that the bride clearly doesn’t want for the “prank, bro.” Others say that being hyper-aggressive with the cake smashing (chasing the bride down or physically overpowering her) is borderline abusive and a good indicator that the marriage will end in divorce. People are putting cake assaults in a general category of “wife bad lol” antics, along with taping HELP ME to the bottom of the groom’s shoes.

In my opinion…

Cake smashing is okay as long as both the bride and groom agree to it and don’t go overboard. Feeding each other cake is cute. Smushing cake on each other’s faces can be a little funny. And honestly, you and your spouse destroying a cake with a sword sounds pretty fun. But, if the groom decides to just shove cake up the bride’s nose despite being explicitly told not to, he shouldn’t be surprised when she leaves and cancels the honeymoon.

In the event that I get married, the most I am willing to tolerate is cake smushed on my mouth. At the very least, lipstick is easy to re-apply. But, to wreck the cake before anyone can have any, ruin my hair, ruin my makeup, ruin my dress, waste the money we spent on the photographer, and blatantly disrespect my physical boundaries on what should be one of the happiest days of our lives? Annulment.