Wedding Cake Ideas

In this day and age of “anything goes,” wedding cake ideas can vary from whatever appeals to the imagination. Heck, nowadays, you don’t even have to have a wedding cake – tarts, pies, cheesecake, and even mousse can be elegant alternatives, if prepared properly and with pizzazz, to the traditional cake at a wedding.

And even among cakes, there is a world of choices: Wedding cakes can be classic, cultural, themed, flowery, fruity, modern, whimsical, and so on. They can be any color of the spectrum, as well. Though white on white is the traditional coloring for a wedding cake, today’s couples are now choosing cakes in blue/purple, chocolate brown, green, pink/red, yellow/orange – even multicolored. They can also be shaped any way you want: square, triangular, rectangular, and, of course, round.

Classic With a Twist

One classic wedding cake ideas is the traditional, five-layered and tiered cake in white on white with oh-so-delicate-looking “embroidery” of piped icing. To turn this already-special cake into something memorable, have your baker or confectioner hand-paint the piped “embroidery” icing with edible gold leaf. Instead of the little bride-and-groom topper, go with a bouquet of gum-paste flowers.

Your guests will be wowed, and you and your soon-to-be spouse will have a wonderfully magnificent cake that’s custom-made for the photographer during the cake-cutting event. Note: This cake goes for more than $2,600 at one exclusive confectioner in New York City. It takes lots of time and work to create, and gold leaf is not cheap! To save on costs, tell your baker to substitute some other edible, gold-colored paint for the gold leaf and to save on labor, eliminate half of the “embroidery,” which is extremely time-consuming to create.

Oh-So Modern!

In the modern category, one wedding cake idea that’s sure to please is this sleek, contemporary cake that puts the emphasis on presentation. It’s a 175-serving torte made of toasted almonds with an icing of fondant. The filling consists of preserves made from three different types of berries and semisweet truffles. The topping is a masterpiece of gum-paste lilacs carefully crafted by hand.

The cake is presented on a table covered in velvet or satin with an organza canopy draped dramatically from the ceiling and opened to showcase the cake. This cake sells at Cakes by Collette in New York for $1,675, but you can save by having your confectioner use less-expensive ingredients (truffles are very expensive!) and replacing the gum-paste lilacs with real, fresh lilacs (that labor thing again!).

These are just a couple of the wedding cake ideas we’ve come up with from the top of our heads, but there are literally hundreds out there on the ‘Net. So take awhile and check ‘em out yourself. Be sure to give your baker or confectioner two to four months in advance of your wedding in order to create just the right cake suitable for your wedding. And always make sure you thoroughly understand all the charges involved.

So have your dream cake and eat it, too, with these wedding cake ideas – just be sure to save a piece for your anniversary!