Eight Essential Tips for Choosing Your Wedding Cake
You’re scrolling on the internet, looking for wedding ideas and you stumble across the perfect looking wedding cake! And then you scroll down and there’s another perfect cake, and another, until you’re not really sure what to choose.
With so many choices these days, choosing a wedding cake has fallen pretty low on the modern couples list of priorities. I think many of us are still haunted by childhood memories of dry, heavy fruitcakes smothered in a thick layer of marzipan and finished with icing so hard that it could break your teeth… Not exactly a crowd pleaser.
But it isn’t a party unless you have cake! The wedding cake has been part of ceremonies for many years and traditions of cutting the cake together are still included in many modern weddings. Plus your wedding cake can be an important part of your wedding styling and centrepiece!
The good news is, you don’t have to have fruitcake if you don’t like it! There are plenty of flavours and designs to choose from, so, as soon as you’ve picked a date, wedding theme and reception venue, it’s time to choose the cake.To make the process less overwhelming, I’ve written you some handy tips:
1.You’ll often need to give your cake maker between six-month to a year’s notice from enquiring, to the big day. This is to ensure there’s enough time for cake tasting, designing, finalising the design and ordering in special ingredients. The earlier you get in touch with a cake maker, the more chance they are available on your big day especially in London. Plus, it’ll take the pressure off knowing it’s all under control far in advance!
2.If you’ve already settled on your dream wedding theme, think about whether you want your cake to match – it’s the easiest place to start. Create a mood board, or save pictures of cakes that you love and search for cake makers that specialise in that style.
You can share your findings with the cake maker to give them an idea of what makes you happy. Many people can make great celebration cakes, but few can make a great wedding cake, so keep an eye out for those who have a few already up their sleeves.
3. How you decide to cover your cake will affect both the taste and look of your cake. Buttercream tastes great but it’s not as stable as ganache or fondant. For warm weather weddings, I would suggest using chocolate ganache as it doesn’t melt as easily. You can still have buttercream fillings if that’s your thing! Often cake makers will have a covering that they love to work with that brings out their creativity. A wedding cake can be anything you want, from floral to abstract art form. Don’t panic, you don’t have to have little bride and/or groom figurines on the top
4. It’s super important to consider pricing. This somewhat taboo topic that isn’t spoken about much, but keep in mind that the more work it takes to create the cake, the more expensive it will be. As much of the work comprises of decorating, using a fake tier or two to make the cake look larger won’t make the cake much cheaper than using real cake. Bespoke cakes will also cost more as the cake maker will work from you from the beginning to design the cake.
5. It is always my recommendation to choose the flavours that you love as a couple best – it’s your wedding so do it the way you want. You can always opt for different cake flavours for each tier if your tastes aren’t quite aligned, or you want to give your guests a little variety. See if your cake maker has any recommendations, or do some research on cake flavours. The world is bigger than just vanilla and chocolate sponge!
6. Cake tasting time! Each cake maker has a different system, but I post out my cake tasting box once a month. Each box has 4 flavours and this varies from month to month, ideal if you’re interested in a flavour you’ve never had before!
7. Once you’ve narrowed your search down to two or three cake designers (or even The One), the cake journey really begins. I like to meet with my couples over a complimentary 30-45-minute design consultation via Zoom.
This is the perfect time to chat with you both about any design inspiration and mood boards, as well as things that are meaningful to your relationship. Getting to know each other when working together empowers my creativity to capture your unity in a cake design. After an initial discussion and budget evaluation, I sketch out several ideas, and we work from there to conceptualise a final design together.
8. Tick wedding cake off your planning list. Woohoo!
