A warmer Thursday start with stray showers this afternoonFTC issues refunds of over $5M to Ring customers; are you eligible?
The new Mr. and Mrs. Cohen with their Publix-style wedding cake. (Provided to WINK News) A wedding cake conundrum. A couple’s plans — changed because of the pandemic. They love cakes from Publix, but travel restrictions meant a lot of wedding guests couldn’t make the trip from Florida to Minnesota, and with no Publix stores up north, they thought they’d have to settle for a cake from somewhere else. But when Publix found out, they had an idea. The dress, the decor and the flowers are all important factors, but for Ben and Erin Cohen, cake topped the list. “When Ben and I first got engaged it was kind of a no brainer that we were going to have a Publix cake at our wedding,” said Erin. Erin, a Florida native, grew up on Publix cakes, so she needed one for her wedding day. But due to COVID-19, her parents couldn’t bring the cake to their Minneapolis wedding. “We immediately started thinking about how we could reverse engineer a Publix cake,” Erin said. They tried and tried, but it wasn’t the same. The buttercream just wasn’t right. Erin told a friend her story, and it ended up in the paper. “When Publix read that story and learned about what we were trying to do, they reached out and offered to make Erin’s dream come true and we jumped at the chance,” said Ben. Ben and Erin Cohen making their wedding cake with the help of a Publix head baker. (Provided to WINK News) Not all heroes wear capes — some wear aprons. The store sent the couple everything they needed to make the perfect Publix cake and the head baker helped them during a live video call. “It was truly amazing,” Erin said. “It was a Friday before our Sunday wedding and it truly kicked off the wedding weekend.” “It really elevated what became a backyard wedding and just gave it a whole other celebration. It was really special,” Ben said. Erin and Ben Cohen’s finished wedding cake (Provided to WINK News) It’s safe to say we know what cake they’ll be eating for every, single anniversary. “For us, we get to have our wedding cake every time we are in Florida. We’ll just go to Publix and get a slice of cake,” Ben said. Publix also sent Erin’s parents a replica wedding cake to their home in Coral Springs. While they couldn’t be together physically, they could still share the moment and a piece of cake over Zoom.