The Importance of Choosing Wedding Cakes

Congratulations!  It’s that very special time when you’re still high on the engagement and looking forward toward that special day when you’ll unite your hearts and lives in a special oath.  You want the day to be the fairy tale you’ve always imagined.  It has to be beautiful in every conceivable way and, to be sure, it will be.  One of the many things on the long list of items to consider for your wedding days will be choosing from many possible wedding cakes, styles, and traditions for the special cutting ceremony.  Don’t worry, things always come together on time.

For starters, you should know why we still uphold this tradition in the first place.  Wedding cakes evolved from a custom held by small villages thousands of years ago.  It was customary in many parts of Europe that any wedding to take place in the town was a celebration for the whole village.  A new household was born, two long-standing local families were uniting, and a new hearth would stand alight to strengthen the entirety of the village.  To commemorate this important event for the “tribe,” the couple (and sometimes just the Bride) would prepare a loaf of bread that would be blessed at the ceremony and then fed to the entire village in attendance. 

It wasn’t until later, when more wealth flooded into the countryside and the nobles began to get fancy to rival one another, that the bread turned into what we now know as cake.  Cake was a luxury to be sure and many villagers only ever tasted it at a special occasion like a wedding.  The act of gifting each member with a piece was a show of good faith from the new bride and groom.  In the Victorian era, the height of fanciness, wedding cakes finally reached the state we know them now: towering, multi-tiered monstrosities that were lavishly decorated with the finest, sweetest icing.  This was the pinnacle of show for the royal wedding and, of course, the peasants and villagers replicated it to the best of their ability. 

Often the wedding cake was designed to match and mirror the bride’s dress, which is why most of them were white and frilly.  In contemporary wedding circles, wedding cakes are seeing yet another renaissance in which we are departing from the rigid traditions of old Victorian noble rivalries and modern brides are taking liberties with the design and style of their wedding cakes.

Where the old ways necessitated sticking to form and outdoing others in subtle ways, modern freedom allows us to depart wildly from the traditional method.  You can still choose elegant, multi-tiered cakes with white icing flowers if you like.  These still maintain a classic beauty and sense of class.  However, you can also choose simpler cakes, horizontal tiers (meaning there are several cakes laid out side-by-side as opposed to stacked), or even creative options like cupcakes or ice cream cakes. 

When you choose a wedding cake design, pick something that you’ll look back and remember fondly as something that represented you and your partner and the special day you shared together.  It doesn’t have to match the dress as has been traditional, but the theme of your ceremony and decoration should surely come into play.  If you’re going with a beach wedding, your wedding cake could reflect this with sand-colored cake, ocean-tinted icing, and sea shell decorations.

Feel free to experiment and feel out what works for you the best.  Wedding cakes are always remembered and you’ll want it to be an extension of yourself at the wedding.  As is traditional, the cake is your gesture to your guests showing your appreciation for their attendance and a way of offering the blessings of your union to everyone.

Once again, Congratulations!