Your wedding cake is one of the most important parts of your wedding, and this month we spoke to some of the top wedding cake designers to ensure you have the most fabulous cake ever!
“It is a unique centre piece that reflects you as a couple, and is a brilliant way to bring some creativity into your day. It can be a poetical tool to visually represent a metaphor, a story or something significant to you.” Henry at Choccywoccydoodah.
1. Let there be cake! And plenty of it…
When it comes to choosing the size of your wedding cake decide on how many portions you need to serve all of your guests. If you have 120 guests attending your evening reception then a 3 or 4 tier cake will be perfect.
2. Information overload
When you go for your initial wedding cake consultation, make sure you are ready and geared up with all of your information.
Wedding cake designers want to know everything - your colour scheme, flowers, wedding dress style, location. This is their starting point for the style and design of your wedding cake, and by paying attention to all the details, it will make sure they build the right design for your wedding day and create a beautiful piece of art.
Take lots of printouts - a wedding cake designer will look at your ideas, the venue, your choice of wedding dress and any other key elements, and from there start to design your perfect wedding cake.
3. It’s all about timing…
Cake designers get booked months in advance so give yourself enough time.
Make an appointment about 6 to 9 months before your wedding, and have a good idea about your wedding plans. Look obsessively through Pinterest, Facebook and social media to get a feel of the cake company's style and different design elements that you like.
If you are after a bespoke design, a consultation is a great way for you to see display examples. And as Dawn Blunden at Sophisticake says, make sure you taste the cakes on offer - it should not only be beautiful, but taste delicious too. “When I'm meeting with brides and grooms I get them to taste my cakes! This is vital because it's so important that cakes taste as good as they look and it shows them that I'm open with nothing to hide.”
4. Making the cut
After you’ve found your wedding cake designer and have agreed on your cake design and specifications - make sure you get everything confirmed in writing to avoid any potential misunderstandings.
Cake Elegance
5. Cut cake prices
“Most people will have a budget for their wedding cake, and whether this is hundreds of pounds or a few thousand pounds it is important to be realistic about what you expect to get for your money.” - Tanya at Cake Elegance.
If you want something small, elegant and reasonably plain this will keep the cost down significantly. For some, less is more and there are lots of beautiful cake designs that do not require hours and hours of sugar craft.
Remember everything adds to the cost: the cake making, ingredients, delivery - but something relatively simple can still look very impressive and will keep the cost down. Consider what's essential for your design and whether keeping it simple and poignant is more effective than adding too much and crowding the cake.
There are lots of ways to keep the cost down – but above all, downsize on cake portions instead of downscaling the design. Collecting your cake can also save on hefty delivery charges.
“Every cake maker should be able to work within a budget and have cakes that suit any budget. I always ask and make sure we are working to a sensible budget.” – Sophisticake.
Sophisticake
6. Choccywoccydoodah say - It’s all about presentation!
Think creatively about how to present your cake. Why not stand the cake on a drum if your partners in a band, a tree trunk if it's an earthy wedding or a flowerpot for a vintage day!?
7. Inspiration creation
Keep an eye on wedding blogs and wedding magazines for emerging trends. Pinterest and Instagram are brilliant for finding colour boards for inspiration and thrifty ways to personalise your day.
Modern vintage and 'shabby chic' designs and trends have been fashionable for some time now - beautiful soft shades of dusky pink and sage greens, light golds, lace and flowers.