Traditional Wedding Cakes

Traditionally the wedding cake is made up of either one very large or multi-layered or tiered fruit cake. It is usually heavily decorated with icing and marzipan or fondant and served after the ceremony at the reception. The history behind the wedding cake started in the Roman empire where the groom would break a loaf of bread over the brides head to signify his dominance. The cutting of the cake by both the bride and groom together is a symbol of their first task together in their married life. The topper of a small model couple that represent the bride and groom that stand on the top of the cake have later been adapted into the tradition.

People have wedding cakes of the traditional kind usually if they are having some sort of traditional wedding theme or ceremony. The tradition of serving the cake to the guests at the reception is still a popular one although in some parts of England there is a tradition of eating the wedding cake at breakfast as part of the traditional wedding breakfast.

The benefits of a traditional wedding cake is that it fits into any traditional wedding theme. The traditional colour is white and they are usually decorated with ribbon.

The disadvantage is that if you are having any sort of unique themed wedding then the traditional look may not always be appropriate and there are far more exciting designs, all shapes and sizes which will fit the theme a lot more suitably.

Non Traditional wedding cakes are becoming much more the norm as there are so many beautiful and exciting designs of cakes to choose from and so many talented cake designers to help you achieve the perfect individual cake for your big day.

Some less traditional designs of cake that have become recently popular are little wedding cup cakes. These are popular as not only is there no need to cut a cake over a hundred times so all your guests can have a slice but also they look beautiful set on a tiered wedding cake stand and they are fun for all.

With themed weddings such as Halloween, the scope to have a lot of fun and create a really spectacular cake is an opportunity not to be missed. Some ideas might include a cake in the traditional colours of Halloween which are orange and black and the cake could be shaped like a pumpkin. You could also wish to have a Halloween themed wedding cake that is designed using ‘the nightmare before Christmas’ as a theme or the corpse bride! It could also be kept very Gothic using the colour black and rich velvety bows to decorate it.

You could have a lot of fun with the cake designer when designing a non traditional wedding cake as your imagination is the limit. People who are having a traditional Scottish wedding for instance could have a very non traditional cake designed for them in the shape of bag pipes and then decorated accordingly. If you are having a beach themed wedding you may wish to have a tiered cake covered in blue icing and fondant shells.

If you are having a traditional ‘fairytale wedding’ you may wish to have a non traditional wedding cake made in the shape of a fairytale castle.

There are some fabulous wedding cakes that have been made and photographed for people so I would suggest going and searching the internet to come up with some ideas that you can then take to a wedding cake designer to help them understand your thoughts and then design you a truly unique cake that will fit in and be the talking point for your big day.

If you want to keep some of the basic traditions of the wedding cake then you could keep the centre made of fruit cake compared with the newer take of the cake which uses either a normal or a chocolate sponge which has become more and more popular. The fruit cake can then be topped into any shape or fondant design that you wish. You could keep other elements of the traditional wedding cake by choosing a sponge centre and then topping it in a more traditional fashion using white as a colour for the icing and decoration.

Wedding cakes are becoming more individualised and it is becoming the norm now to have a beautifully designed cake that matches your wedding theme. So whatever design or style of wedding cake you choose, whether it is classically traditional or something a bit more unique, bear in mind that the tradition of eating and feeding your guests cake still remains a steadfast wedding tradition and does not look as if it will be dying off any time in the near future.

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