Wedding season is upon us! Well, almost. When it comes to wedding cakes, there are lots of choices starting with the type of cake. According to wedding cake specialist Gabrielle Feuersinger of Cake Coquette, there are several different major categories to choose from.

1. European cakes
These cakes include the very traditional fondant wrapped cake with a bow, Princess cakes with marzipan and St. Honore cakes with pate a choux puffs. Most standard bakeries can do these cakes. Plan on spending at least $4-5 per slice.

2. Art cakes
These cakes feature painting, fondant cut-outs, piped buttercream and other elaborate types of decoration. They are more likely to be unique. Popular sources of inspiration for these cakes comes from the venue, dress details, or the theme of the wedding. At a minimum expect to pay $7 per slice and up.

3. Sculpture cakes
The popularity of these cakes has grown, due to television shows like the Ace of Cakes. What sets these cakes apart is their 3-d structures made to look like almost anything imaginable from the Eiffel Tower to a high heel shoe. Prices are $8-10 per slice, minimum.

4. Alternative cakes
When is a cake not a wedding cake? When it's a stack of cupcakes, doughnuts, or even individual cakes for each guest. The prices for these can vary greatly. Some options are less expensive than a traditional cake, some are more.

Wedding planners suggest contacting a bakery or baker at least five months before the wedding. Popular bakers like Feuersinger often get booked six to nine months ahead and say for popular dates such as New Year's Eve, three day weekends or auspicious Chinese dates, plan a year ahead.

Tips:

Make sure the cake tastes as good as it looks. Fondant will create a smooth finish but is not as tasty as buttercream. Plan on about an hour for your cake tasting, and be sure to bring fabric swatches, photos of cakes and anything else that will help your cake designer get a feel for what you'd like.

Decide on a theme for the wedding before deciding on the cake. This will make it easier to design the perfect cake. The trend in wedding cakes is personalization, a cake like no other. Find an architectural element, a special cake topper or even a monogram.

Got a wacky idea for a cake? Consider using it for the groom's cake, a Southern tradition that has been growing in popularity.

Find out what the cake cutting fee is before finalizing your budget. Many venues charge between $5 and $10 just for cutting and serving.

Two cakes are more economical than one. Get the wedding cake of your dreams in a smaller size and have a back up sheet cake for up to half the guests. Sheet cakes can cost as little as $2.50 per slice and no one will know the difference.

Another money saving tip: Make your own cake stand and work with a florist to decorate the area around the cake.

A cake with columns for height, filled in with flowers, is impressive but likely to be less expensive than a heavily decorated cake.

It's always an honor to be asked to be part of or contribute to a wedding, but it's even more flattering when your culinary skills are called upon for said wedding.

In October, Kim specifically requested I bring my "famous potato salad" to her post-Scotland wedding reception, and last weekend, Catherine, Jeff, and all of us wedding guests toasted their happiness with my Lady in Red at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

Over the summer, Catherine -- for whom I once designed a simple birthday cocktail to go along with her gift of St. Germain elderflower liqueur -- asked if I would shake up a special wedding cocktail. Her only request: it had to be red to match her dress.

After first assessing what the Mandarin Oriental stocked in their bar, I set about to concocting the cocktail. Aside from staining its cheeks crimson, I wanted this cocktail to be three things: seasonal, celebratory, and reflective of the bride's tastes. Well, not all of that happened.

Ignoring sangria and all other wine-based cocktails of that ilk, I knew that the red hue was going to come from cranberry or pomegranate juice (seasonal!), and after a few (read: nine) attempts, I ditched the cranberry juice. It was too easily diluted in both color and flavor. I also had to ditch my idea of including both bourbon and ginger ale in this cocktail (the bride's signature drink) because no matter what I did, the bourbon came out too...bourbon-y.

A few weeks later, I started with a whole new plan and a whole new red. Now working with the stronger, tarter pomegranate juice, I cried, "Eureka" after three passes and then set to refining the flavors.

Victorious and hung-over, I presented the recipe to the bride along with a list of potential names: Ruby Slipper, Scarlet 75 (the drink is an adaptation of the classic French 75), Red Letter Day, and Lady in Red. (She chose "Lady in Red," so if you now have Chris de Burgh in your head, it's not my fault.)

(Okay, maybe it is.)

On my reserve list of names was Study in Scarlet, Red-dy or Knot (my husband's contribution), The Red Menace, The Scarlet Letter, The Cat's Meow, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose, and Redrum. (I will be saving that last one for a blood-soaked mojito or daiquiri in case Stephen King ever wants me to design a wedding cocktail for him.)

Lady in Red

2 oz. pomegranate juice
1 1/2 oz. gin
4 oz. ginger ale (preferably very spicy ginger ale)
Sparkling rosé
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
Pomegranate seeds

Shake pomegranate juice and gin with ice; strain into a cocktail glass. Add ginger ale and top off with sparkling rose. Finish with bitters. Garnish with four pomegranate seeds for health, happiness, love, and laughter.

I am pleased and relieved to report that the drink was extremely well received. Even my French friend, who I thought preferred champagne to everything, was seen drinking more than one Lady in Red. Additionally, the bartender told someone else that he's seen a lot of guest-created cocktails pass through his shaker, but he had never seen one reordered so many times. Finally -- and most importantly -- the bride, the groom, and all my cocktailing friends loved it.

I hope you do, too.

In case you've been living in a well-stocked bomb shelter for the past few weeks, you've most likely heard that the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 to legalize same-sex marriages.

Well, hooray and all that, but it's got me a bit troubled. I'm not so much bothered about those clowns at Save California and their terribly irritating November ballot measure because, for some extraordinary reason, I've recently been instilled with an unreasonable amount of faith in the majority of California voters. For now.

No, what troubles me is this--

What on earth does one feed a banquet hall full of homosexuals? That's a dilemma that would strike any sane wedding planner apoplectic. Individually, a gay man might respond to foodstuffs in a manner similar to that of a straight man, but get five or more in a room together and watch out. Have you ever baked a birthday cake for a gay man's birthday party, only to find thirty or so other gay men moaning about carbohydrates, telling you that while the dessert you've just put your heart and soul into looks great, they'll just have to pass on it, while patting their stomach? Well, I have, and what I have since learned is this: Guzzling vodka = good carbs, eating a tiny sliver of polenta cake= It-will-make-me-fat-and-then-no-one-will-love me-or-think-I'm-hot bad.

No, cake is out of the question. Perhaps a wedding protein shake would be more fitting. Of course, there's the problem of slicing.

How does one approach a gay reception? For one couple I know, I imagine there would be a chilled Ketel One fountain splashing about. Would others prefer a Teddy Bear Picnic motif? I think the traditional menus might need a going over. Instead of fish or chicken, the invitations should request a preference for either no-carb or sauce on the side.

And what on earth do you feed a roomful of lesbians? There is only so much quinoa to be had in any given season, you know.

Entertainment? If Melissa Etheridge is too busy with her own wedding or too highly priced to perform at yours, will gym teacher-turned-songbird Ann Murray do? I don't know for certain if she is a lesbian, but she's Canadian and not as busy as she used to be, and that often works in a pinch.

If you are planning a wedding and you want it gay-officiated, gay photographed, and gay-catered (I'm going to assume you'd be picking a gay deejay anyway), one resource with possibilities I've found is the Golden Gate Business Association. Hound them. While there is so far no specific section of their website dedicated to gay wedding needs, I think it would be wise for them to throw one together. Like now.

Of course, chances are, your wedding planner might be a gay man with some inside channels, one might hope. And then there's the gay florists and caterers, who tend to be busy in the June wedding season anyway. Citizen Cake, for example, has been flooded with wedding cake orders this month-- gay and straight.

Hypothesizing same-sex wedding scenarios is time well spent, but this is what really bothers me…

When I contacted the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Center of San Francisco for information, I was told by the gentleman who assisted me that the Center was "so overwhelmed with Pride" at the moment to do anything about same-sex weddings. So overwhelmed with Pride. It's as busy and as gay a month as anyone can imagine. And so emotional, apparently.

The Big Gay resource centers do not yet have a handle on this new marriage business. I can't say I don't understand, since it was all rather unexpected and came at a time when everyone was already too excited by the selection of Charo as our Gay Pride Grand Marshall to think of anything else. But time's a-wasting. The weddings start happening on June 17th. Or, as rumor has it, the evening of the 16th.

The fact of the gay wedding matter is our selection of go-to wedding assistance is very limited. There's always GayWeddings.com. Its a good starting point, certainly, but theyre Washington-based. What we need is something local. So you'll just have to go through the traditionally straight channels to plan that day you've always dreamed about but never thought would actually happen.

And that's a big, crying shame. The fact that the Gay BLT Center or whatever it's called is too "overwhelmed" with, um, Pride tells me that they really don't have their priorities, um straight. From an historic point of view, this is a big, big, BIG moment for San Francisco's Lesbians and Gays. From a financial point of view, same-sex weddings are a booming business. Tens of thousands of gay couples will be flocking to our state-- and our city-- to get married to the tune of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars over the next couple of years. Sure, parades are fun-- wave a flag, wear some hot pants, and shake your ass on a corporate-sponsored float all you want-- it's a damned parade, for Christ's sake. I just don't want us to miss the real parade that might be passing us by.

Or the gravy train.

Of course we won't really miss it. Businesses will pop up like so many mushrooms: gay wedding planners, gay photographers, gay divorce lawyers. Perhaps The Midnight Sun will rent itself out for receptions. I just hope that, after the drunken haze of Pride Season clears, we can focus on what should really make us proud (Sorry, Charo, it isn't you)-- that we are finally equal under California State law. We can have our own weddings and, even better, attend those of our straight friends and families without that sad, nagging "I can never have this" feeling-- whether you want your own wedding or not.

Until November, anyway, when we'll have to fight again.

You know why I'm fighting? Because the next time a guy introduces his "hus-bear" to me, I can ask to see the rings as proof of their wedded bliss. I only hope to God they show me the ones on their fingers.