Choosing a Wedding Cake

Along with the speeches, your first dance and throwing the bouquet, cutting your wedding cake is one of the key events of your wedding reception. The vast majority of your guests will stay at least until the cutting of the cake, and this will inevitably feature in your wedding photography, so you want your wedding cake to look good. You'll probably want it to taste good too!

Cake designers and bakeries usually require that you order several months before your wedding, so this is not something that can be left to the last minute. If you practically designed the cake in your head years before you even got engaged, then you probably need a cake designer to make this dream come true. Cake designers are craftspeople and their skills should see that your ideas are beautifully realised. As such, their time isn't cheap, nor should it be.

If you are a little more flexible regarding the look of your cake, or if your wedding cake isn't one of your top priorities, then the best place to start is at your local bakeries. Drop in for a chat and look through their portfolio of previous wedding cakes. There may be testimonials included in their 'folio', if not, ask to see some references. During this visit I wouldn't be at all surprised if you end up doing a little tasting too!

A relatively obvious rule of thumb regarding wedding cakes is that larger and more intricate equals more expensive. The number of guests at your reception will mostly dictate the size of your cake. Your designer/baker will be able to advise you on the size needed for your reception. The design, level of detail and taste are more the areas that you can really tailor to your budget.

For a select few brides-to-be the wedding cake might be so important that other features of the wedding (such as flowers etc.) are then designed and colour co-ordinated to compliment it. For most, though, it will be a case of designing the cake to compliment the other elements of your wedding colour scheme. It is very common for wedding cakes to match the bridal bouquet, perhaps even featuring miniature, edible replicas of some of the key flowers.

With a good cake designer and a reasonable budget, almost anything is possible.

Emerging wedding cake Trends Based on Weddings I Have Attended

• This year (for the first time) I have found the traditional pristine white wedding cake to be in the minority at the weddings I have photographed. Instead, coloured icing, decorations and ribbons are becoming more common.
• The combining of a smaller detailed wedding cake with a large number of individual miniature guest cakes is becoming extremely prevalent and is a great way to save money, since the guest cakes need not be intricately decorated.
• Fruitcakes used to be the most common type of wedding cake but in the last couple of years there seems to be so much variety that there is almost no 'main type'. Fruit, sponge and chocolate are equally prominent. If you wish to save the top part of your wedding cake for posterity, it is worth noting that fruitcake keeps best.