Wedding Cupcakes and...Pi?

Nope.  Not a typo.  Pi.

I know I don't usually talk about my wedding plans on here (that's what this blog is for), but I just had to share this story with y'all!  I'm at the stage of wedding planning where we're SO close to the big day that I'm basically becoming delirious.  I recently ordered a cupcake tree from Save on Crafts to display our wedding cupcakes.  It was relatively inexpensive...because it's basically just pieces of cardboard.  Unfortunately, that means the edges looked like this:

I decided to purchase some ribbon to line the outside of each tier.  When I got to the store, I found some lovely green grosgrain ribbon, sold in spools of 18 feet.

I realized that I didn't have the measurements of each tier's circumference.  How was I supposed to know how much ribbon to buy?  Then, I remembered something: a formula from my past.

I could calculate the circumference of each tier, and then I'd know how much ribbon to buy to wrap around the edges!  Brilliant!  The only problem was that I didn't have the radius measurements either, just the diameters.  Oh wait, two radii equals the diameter!

I whipped out my phone and plugged in 3.14 x each diameter into the calculator.  The grand total of all five tiers' circumferences was approximately 20 feet.  I bought two spools of ribbon, headed home and warmed up my trusty glue gun.  I glued the ribbon around the edges of each tier, which resulted in the following:

{all personal photos}

Ah!  Much better!  The best part of this story is that this project took place on March 14th...Pi Day!  So, I used pi to calculate something in real life.  It just goes to show you...kids, listen to your algebra teachers.  You never know when life will hand you a word problem!

Any other Mu Alpha Theta alum or Mathletes out there?