Bobby Dodd groom's cake

There's nothing half-baked about this story. And it's not a tall tale, even though Theresa "Tree" Spell, who stands 6 feet, met her friend, Beverley "Bev" Berdella, 6 feet 2, at Atlanta's Tall Club.

When Bev and Jack Thomason, a huge Georgia Tech fan, decided to get married, Tree and her husband, Earl, cooked up a sweet idea — a groom's cake designed to look like Bobby Dodd Stadium at Grant Field.

Earl Spell, who works for Georgia Power, is not a Tech alumnus either, but he's been a Yellow Jackets fan since the early 1950s. The brother of his Sunday school teacher at the Bainbridge, Ga., First Baptist Church, was Tech quarterback Bill Brigman, who led the Bobby Dodd-coached Jackets to a national championship in 1952.

"I got to meet Bobby Dodd," Spell said, "and I've been a Tech fan since."

The cake took nine mixes and 13 hours to make.

"Earl was my biggest critic," Tree said. "He bleeds white and gold. He started drawing it out on a board."

As Earl meticulously laid out the plans, Tree got her sewing tape and measured the door.

"Big boy, you'd better put away your protractor and ruler," Tree told him. "That cake won't go out the door."

"I had to scale back," Earl conceded.

"Everything was edible except the goal posts, a plastic Buzz, the bride, groom, bicycle and Ramblin' Wreck," Tree said.

The cake was transported from Peachtree City to Lawrenceville, Ga., for the March wedding. Earl brought along a CD by the Georgia Tech band and when it was time for the groom to cut his cake, he did it to a rousing rendition of the "Ramblin' Wreck."

"The cake was the hit of the reception," Earl Spell said.