You’ve found your dream dress, worded the invitations, and the florist is making you the most heavenly bouquets. Now it’s time to turn your attention towards the ultimate confection – your wedding cake. This is the best part of planning a wedding, since your fiancé is through rolling his eyes about flowers and fonts, and is rolling up his sleeves to help you sample slice after slice of delicious cake. Here are a few things we like to tell our Tizzerts brides for the sweetest results:
Timing is everything
Generally, you should order your wedding cake two to six months prior (although we’ve designed plenty of cakes with as little as two weeks notice!) to the wedding date. The date and location of your wedding is crucial when choosing the cake. Ask us what types of cakes and flowers are in “season” to help create the mood for the event. We can design the perfect cake for anything from a winter wonderland to a summer bbq guaranteed to complement your reception site, colors and flowers.
Feeding the multitudes
Wedding cakes can come in all shapes and sizes. Traditional cakes are round and have several tiers, but these days the size and shape of your cake are purely up to the imagination. Square or a combination of square and round are more unexpected — and the tiers can be stacked for a solid look or set on pillars or separators for an airy grace to help create height.
Many brides forgo a single cake altogether and opt for a trio of smaller cakes on interesting or vintage pedestals. The more casual bride with a simple remembrance of Mom’s kitchen may find that cupcakes have an uncanny ability to bring back delightful childhood memories. Of course the biggest factor in deciding how large your wedding cake should be is the number of guests.
What’s your flavor?
For multi-tiers, you don’t have to choose just one flavor. Each level can be different, from dense homey carrot on the bottom to cream cheese pound cake on the top—something for everyone! Butter cakes and vanilla are very popular, but there’s no reason they can’t be chocolate, lemon or almond.
Fillings are another way to bring in more flavor. In addition to buttercream or other frostings, you can select raspberry, lemon curd, strawberry, cream cheese, chocolate ganache, vanilla pastry cream, white chocolate pastry cream or almond pastry cream.
Frosting, frosting, and more frosting
Traditionally, icing has been white or a light cream color. However today, many brides are matching their icing color with the overall theme of the wedding. The actually icing can be a simple sugar and flour recipe, buttercream, or even a rich cream cheese icing. If you adore chocolate you may opt for ganache. Depending on the cake’s architectural needs and weather demands, you may want to include fondant or royal icing; some couples design the cake around the décor or theme of the wedding, like vintage lace or the blue and silver from their invitations. Others choose a cake with a unique look based on their relationship or lifestyle—like boats, surfboards, or fairytales—all of which require their own types of frosting. Whether you subscribe to the “less is more” or the “more bling the better” school of thought, Tizzerts can design a cake to suit your needs.
Decorations
It can be enormously helpful for us to understand your vision if you bring photos and magazine clippings of design elements that you like, from flowers to fabric swatches or invitations. Inspiration may come from the wedding location, fashion, nature, or even your menu. With location, you can base your cake on the willow trees surrounding the reception site, the skyline of the city where he proposed, or the architecture of an historic home. The details of a bride’s dress or accessories, such as a lace mantilla or the pearls in her necklace, can look beautiful adorning the tiers of her wedding cake. Natural elements are classic and add a beautiful theme, echoing the wildflowers of a rustic reception or adding simple chocolate sea shells for a beach wedding. And the menu can also spark creativity with the design; if you’re having a French meal, the cake might display lavender sprigs or bunches of sugared grapes. The options are endless, so consider:
Special décor
Custom piping or monogramming
Hand made gum paste flowers
Edible handmade royal icing flowers
Edible fondant cutouts
Silver or gold leaf or beading
Fresh flowers
Stylish cupcake wraps
Cake topper styles
Sugared fruit
Tiers stuffed with flowers to create heighth
Tizzerts Owner and Founder Tiz Benson has been working with Charlotte brides to design their dream wedding cakes for 14 years. Just call us to set up your cake consultation!
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