Let Them Eat Cake! - The Contemporary Wedding Cake
Are you ready to sink your teeth into a wedding day confection? Not many guests leave the reception before the wedding cake is cut! Your delicious and decorative wedding cake is a tradition that will be featured in your many photographs for years to come. Therefore, add your own personal style when choosing your perfect wedding cake.
Choosing Your Wedding Cake
Traditionally, the wedding cake had to be a tiered, white cake with white icing. Nowadays, just about anything goes! Today there are hundreds of wedding cakes that you can choose from, in a variety of shapes, colors and styles. You can order a wedding cake customized to match your own unique taste and have just about any design and flavor under the sun.When you are ready to start looking for the perfect wedding cake, these are the basics to take into consideration:
Size & Shape: The size of the wedding cake will depend on the number of guests that you are expecting. If you are planning to save some wedding cake for guests unable to attend, keep this in mind while determining the exact number of people. The traditional and still popular shape is round or square. However, nowadays you can use your imagination and choose from any unique shape for your cake. Keep in mind that a round or square wedding cake will most likely serve more guests and is quickly and easily cut.
Design: A creative baker will help you design your own cake. Your choices here are endless. Look through wedding magazines and the baker’s wedding cake sample pictures to find a wedding cake design that dazzles you. Modern wedding cakes can be decorated to match the bride’s lace pattern on her gown or even the flowers in her bouquet. A particular theme from your wedding can be used to design the wedding cake around that theme. Just realize that the more intricate the cake, the more expensive it will be.
Flavor: While it is essential that wedding cakes appeal to your visual senses, it is even more important that they taste moist and delicious! Wedding cakes come in a multitude of yummy varieties from chocolate or vanilla, to fancy carrot, cheese, banana, fruit or mousse fillings. If you are tempted by different flavors, you can have a multi-flavored cake with different tiers in different flavors.
Icing: The icing on the wedding cake is traditionally white or ivory. A more contemporary approach is to match your icing to your wedding colors. Anything goes from dark chocolate icing, to pale pastels or bright colors.
Wedding Cake Etiquette
Here is some wedding cake etiquette for you to know:
- The wedding cake is displayed on a beautifully decorated table, which goes in front of the main table without blocking the guests' view of the bride and groom. A decorated knife is usually placed at the table.
- The wedding cake is cut after the reception lunch or dinner has been served.
- The cutting of the cake is announced prior to the cutting.
- The right hand of the groom goes over the right hand of the bride, while they cut the wedding cake together. The first slice is fed by the groom to his bride, after which the bride serves her new husband.
- The wedding cake is then taken away by a family member, friend or the catering staff to be cut. The cutting is not done in front of the guests.
- The wedding cake is then served with coffee or tea. Know that once the cake is served and eaten, your guests will start to leave.
What to Ask the Baker
Selecting the right baker to create your wedding cake is important. Wedding cakes are a work of art. Here are some helpful questions to ask your baker to make sure that you get exactly what you are looking for:
- Ask to see their portfolio: Ask the baker to show you pictures of wedding cakes that they have previously made. This will help you to determine if you like the baker's style and creativity.
- Ask about Custom Designed Wedding Cakes: Find out if the baker will custom design a wedding cake from your specific idea or picture. Also ask if they charge an extra fee for this service.
- Ask for a Tasting: Ask the baker to offer you a tasting before you order your wedding cake. Many bakers will let you taste the various cakes, frostings and fillings used for wedding cakes.
- Delivery and Set-up: Ask the baker if they deliver and set up the cake. Your caterer will not be happy if he or she has to set up a wedding cake that has not been ordered by them.
- Additional Charges: Ask the bakers if they are going to charge you any kind of deposit for items such as cake tops, pillars, or columns, which will have to be used and returned to them. Inquire about costs if you fail to return the items. Also inquire if there is an additional charge for setting up the cake.
- Ordering the Wedding Cake: Bakers often require you to place your order at least a couple of months in advance. This gives them enough time to devote to making your wedding cake. Once you settle on a particular baker, put down everything in writing and have them confirm it so that there is no room for any confusion later on. Make sure the order clearly states what kind of wedding cake you have chosen. If it is going to be a shaped cake, write down the exact shape or design that you have requested. List down how many tiers the wedding cake is going to be made of. If you wish to store the top tier of the wedding cake for your first anniversary, remember not to count its pieces for serving your guests. Also specify what flavor each separate tier should be of. The wedding cake order should include a little description of the decorations that you have decided on. Specify which cake topper will go on the wedding cake. List the time, date and location of the wedding reception. Lastly, specify the exact cost of the entire wedding cake, including any additional charges. If any deposit is given, write down the amount of the deposit as well as the remaining balance.
Do you know these Wedding Cake Traditions?
The wedding cake was originally made of many little wheat cakes. These were broken over the head of the new bride. This tradition was meant to bestow fertility and good luck to the new bride for her married life. Fortunately for the bride, this tradition is no longer practiced. The cutting of the wedding cake was once cut only by the bride and was symbolic of her upcoming loss of virginity. In modern times this tradition of cutting the cake includes the groom as well. Cutting the cake and sharing the first bite with each other symbolizes the couple’s promise to share their new life together.
The top tier of the wedding cake was traditionally kept and used at the christening of the couple's first child. But today, this tradition has been modified and the top tier is saved to be used at the couple's first anniversary.
Another wedding cake tradition is if an unmarried person sleeps with a piece of a wedding cake under their pillow, they will dream of their future spouse that night. This is one custom that is sure to excite the single guests at your wedding!
For more helpful wedding tips visit www.BestWeddingNJ.com where you will find the ultimate New Jersey wedding ceremonies and New Jersey wedding services! Have a wonderful wedding day and enjoy the richness of spending your lives together!
May you begin a lifetime of love and happiness!
Rev. Diane Cuesta
Owner of BestWeddingNJ.com
