TIFU by eating wedding cake that was definitely NOT for me

This didn't happen today, it happened when I was 8 y/o (20ish years ago) and happened over the course of a a few weeks give or take.

So when I was eight, my cousin got married. In my culture, you don't serve the wedding cake to the guests, instead the tiers are given out to the bride's family, groom's family and one special tier. I came to find out that the 'special tier' was for a small ceremony after the first 100 days of the wedding (how cake is meant to last that long without going bad, I truly do not know to this day).

Anyway, a few weeks after the wedding, I found the cake in my aunt's bedroom (groom's mum... also, weird place to keep a cake). My sweet-tooth instincts recognised the box right away. And lo and behold, it was cake. I resisted for a few hours honestly but the cake kept calling me so I took a bite out of it like a heathen. That left me with a problem: they'll know someone ate the cake... I came up with an excellent plan: turn the cake so the bitten-out part is not facing direct field of vision.

Over the course of the 100 days, I took "strategic" bites (remember I was 8) out of the cake and eventually reduced it to crumbs and icing. I have a feeling I wasn't the only one sampling the contraband but I have no proof. By the time the 100 day anniversary came around, there was not much of the cake.

The ceremony day came and who does my aunt sent to get the cake? You guessed it, me... along with my sister. Now I know there's no cake in that box but I get up and go looking for it. I even innocently ask "um, where is the cake?" making my aunt describe in more detail than is necessary the location of the box of crumbs.

Yup, the box was lighter than expected and my sister opens the box.

No cake. Just crumbs... and icing.

My sister's eyes went wide and panic set in.

She picked up the box and carried it to the living room to show everyone. At that point, the only upside was that the only people in this ceremony was immediate family members.

To cut this short, everyone was shocked, rats were somehow blamed (they didn't eat the box though). They had to get store-bought cake (I still don't fully understand the role of the cake but, what do I know)

I finally admitted to the bride this past x-mas and she wasn't as mad as shoe could have been. She did vow to eat my wedding cake or have her kid do it when the time came. Lesson: never eat cake you know, no matter how delicious it looks.

TL/DR: I ate my cousin's wedding cake and pinned it on the rats even though we didn't have any.