A piece of Donald and Melania Trump’s wedding cake has just gone up for auction
07 Feb 2019
2m
In ordinary circumstances, sending a piece of someone else’s wedding cake to an auction house would be considered seriously weird. Even if you know the happy couple really well, trying to profit of their special day is at best insensitive, at worst slightly psychotic. However, as anyone who pays attention to the news knows, these are not normal times.
With this in mind, anyone looking to own a piece of what could become shockingly pertinent US history could have the opportunity of a lifetime. It has been reported this week that a piece of cake from the current President and First Lady’s nuptials is about to go under the gavel at Bostonian auctioneers “RR Auction”. History buffs could win the chance to literally have their cake and eat it.
The cake hails from Donald Trump’s third wedding to then-model Melania Knauss. According to contemporary reporting from People Magazine, the event took place in a 17,000 square-ft ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Members of the exclusive guest list were all given one of the miniature cakes as a gift.
According to the description on RR’s website, the item measures “approximately 3.25″ in diameter and 3″ in height”. Originally “presented as a wedding favor to be taken home by one of the nearly 350 guests” which included the likes of P Diddy, Simon Cowell and the Clintons, the cake is “housed in its original off-white paper box, which is monogrammed in gilt, ‘M D T’.” It is also allegedly in “very good condition,” despite being 14 years old.
Other features of the small chocolate truffle cake include a “single, sugar-spun buttercream rose,” along with copious amounts of gold leaf. Fox News also report that the design is based on the original 200-pound, $50,000 yellow sponge, “flavored with orange zest, filled with butter cream, soaked in Grand Marnier, and adorned with 2,000 individually constructed sugar-spun flowers,” that the “happy” couple sliced on the big day itself. RR Auction state that this larger cake was not actually served to guests, “due to the intricate wire infrastructure”.
Normally, you would think that hungry Republicans would be queuing round the block to own a share in such a significant and exclusive event. However, as of Wednesday, offers on the cake were few and far between. With offers starting at around $200, the item had only received four bids, with the highest coming in at $267. Given that RR Auction had hoped to sell the cake for around $1500, this poor performance came as something of a shock.
Given the stellar rise of the wedding’s two main protagonists, it seems slightly surprising that no one is interested in owning this particular piece of history. Apparently politics has become so toxic that anything associated with Donald Trump is destined to be ignored by the type of people who spend time at an auction. Even expensive cake isn’t enough to sweeten the deal.