W

hat should you 
do if you’re single 
and itching to find 
your significant other? One 
little-known superstition is to 
sleep with a piece of wedding 
cake under your pillow. Before 
you scoff, you should know that 
it has worked … at least once!
In February 1997, Fawn 
Alekman of Farmington 
Hills had been invited to 
the wedding of her good 
friends Rebecca and Andrew 
Hayman. Fawn was on the 
dance floor when her friend’s 
mother approached her.
“You’re not seeing anyone 
serious, are you?” her friend’s 
mother asked her with all the 
usual concern of any loving 
Jewish mother. 
Then she pressed a piece of 
wedding cake into a napkin 
and thrust it into Fawn’s hands. 
“Here, take this home with you, 
put it under your pillow … and 
then you’ll meet your bashert. 
You’ll see, you’ll be the next one 
to get married!”
Fawn laughed, but she didn’t 
want to offend her friend’s 
mother and, besides, what 
did she have to lose? So she 
shrugged, took the cake 
home, put the cake under 
her pillow and out of her 
mind.
In the meantime, the 
balls had already been set in 
motion. At that same wed-
ding, a friend of the groom, 
a certain man called Adam 
Chayet, had noticed a pretty 
girl in a blue dress dancing 
and asked his friends who she 
was. They were introduced at 
the wedding, and a few days 
later, Paula Lynn asked Fawn if 
she could give her phone num-
ber to the guy she’
d met at the 
wedding.
“I said sure, didn’t think 
anything of it,
” Fawn admitted. 
“In fact, I’
d forgotten about the 
cake. I only remembered a week 
later when I cleaned my sheets 
and I found the wedding cake 

smooshed under my pillow!”
It was full speed ahead for 
Fawn and Adam. They dated 
for the next 11 months and got 
married in October 1998 at 

Shaarey Zedek, the same place 
they’
d first met! 
“My friend’s mother said I 
would be the next one to get 
married — and she was right, I 

was!” Fawn exclaimed. 
Was it chance, their destined 
time or did the old wives’ tale 
actually work? “You just really 
never know, right?” Fawn said. 
Fawn and Adam were so 
eager to share the superstition 
that seemed to have had a hand 
in them finding their happily 
ever after, that they took the 
distribution of their wedding 
cake at their own wedding very 
seriously! They had the cake 
sliced and distributed in boxes 
explaining how they’
d met! 
Besides that, Fawn and Adam 
don’t consider themselves par-
ticularly superstitious — “Well, 
I do believe in karma, and say 
‘poo poo poo!’ like my grand-
mother!” Fawn said. They’ve 
also thrown pennies into the 
concrete in their basement when 
their house was being built, 
which is supposed to be a super-
stition for prosperity.
“I mean, it can’t hurt, right?!” 
Fawn said. 
Whether or not it’s down to 
that pillow-smooshed piece 
of wedding cake, this Oct. 25, 
Adam and Fawn will have been 
happily married for 25 years. 
They are the proud parents of 
Mathew, 23, who’s 
planning to grad-
uate from Eastern 
Michigan this 
December with a 
degree in sport man-
agement, and Abby, 
18, who’s just started 
her sophomore year 
in Syracuse University. 
The family belongs to 
Temple Israel.
“So, if you want to get 
married, I recommend 
sleeping with wedding 
cake under your pillow … 
I don’t know if this superstition 
always works, but it did for me!” 
Fawn said. 

This column will appear 
biweekly. If you’d like to share 
your “meet-cute” story, please 
email burstynwithjoy@hotmail.
com 

LEFT: Fawn and Adam’s wedding cake boxes explained 
how they met. RIGHT: They got married in October 1998.

“Having Your Cake 
and Sleeping 
With It, Too!”

ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

34 | OCTOBER 12 • 2023 J
N

OUR COMMUNITY
HOW WE MET 

Fawn and Adam with their children, Mathew and Abby.

