“Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it.”     

E. Lockhart

You’re getting married! You’ve got the wedding venue, the date, the dress and a fiancé all sorted! So one of the things you need to do now is some research into wedding cakes, but where to begin?

_{^{What types of wedding cakes are there?}}

• Themed wedding cakes. Check out the Star Wars Millennium Falcon cake later!
• Naked cakes. I never knew what a naked cake was until I started shooting weddings.
• Floral, Painted, Laced. There’re loads of different ways to have your cake covered.
• Cup cakes or doughnuts. Make it yourself. It doesn’t have to be same old same old.
• Flavours. Lemon, chocolate, summer fruits, vanilla. Yummy.
• Big, small, tall or short. There’s no right or wrong way.

_{^{My wedding photography will give you a great starting point.}}

Well the first thing you need is an idea of what type of cake you want. Luckily for you I’m a wedding photographer and have photographed hundreds of wedding cakes over the past few years. I wrote this blog to show you lots of these cakes in one place. So now you don’t have to visit those click baity ad filled websites that take ten minutes to trawl through to actually get to see the cakes they promised you!

Although this is going to be mainly a pictorial feature there are a few tips I want to share with you that I picked up while researching this blog including:

• Timing, how much notice to give your Cake Maker.
• Size of cake.
• Time of year. Yep, naked cream sponges are not going to last all day by a window in July!
• Set up. Who is going to get the cake to the venue and when can you do it.
• When to cut it. Not everyone does it in the evening.

More on those later.

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_{^{Timings – When Should I order my cake?}}

It’s important to realise that some wedding cakes need time to age and mature. It’s not a case of stick it in the oven at 180 for two hours! One of the other main considerations though is how busy your Cake Maker is going to be around your wedding day. An in demand Cake Maker might have several cake orders to prepare if it’s a popular summer wedding date on a Saturday. I would suggest you start looking at least 12 months before to make sure you get a Baker you want. If you’re not too fussed on the actual Baker then 6 months should be fine.

_{^{Size of wedding Cake – “Please Sir, can I have some more?”}}

The number of guests is going to be the main factor here, remember though it’s unlikely all guests will have a slice, having said that you always get the Aunt who wraps 3 slices in a napkin to bring back to Uncle Derek who couldn’t make it on the day!

If you’ve got a really big wedding it’s not unusual to have a smaller elaborately decorated “show cake” that you cut and then have the wedding venue kitchen staff cut a cheaper to make sheet cake to lay out and serve to your guests. Talk to your Baker for the best advice.

_{^{Time of Year. When are you getting married?}}

Think about the environment your cake is going to be displayed in. You’re getting married at 1.00 on a Saturday in July, it might be 28 degrees centigrade, your cake is being displayed near a window, how long do you think a naked sponge cream cake is going to last? I’ve seen recent couples instead of having a traditional wedding cake go for a cheese board type cake, venues are under strict health, safety and food hygiene rules about how long they can leave food out so make sure you have thought of things like this.

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You’ve ordered your cake and it’s ready. Your big day is getting closer. Everything is falling into place, the excitement is really building now. All of a sudden, action stations. Best Man and Bridesmaids are all over the place running everywhere. Family have all got their jobs to do so you can enjoy being pampered in the morning. In all the commotion you haven’t made plans for the cake to get to the venue! OK your Baker can do this for you but if you’re getting married in your partner’s home town or in a location away from your normal home your Cake Maker might be hundreds of miles away. You need to designate someone to babysit the cake* . They’ll need to liaise with the venue to see when they can set the cake up, some venues are strict on when suppliers/visitors are allowed access to rooms.

*(top tip – remember wedding cakes are fragile, don’t let Charlotte the rally driver do it!)

_{^{When to cut your wedding cake?}}

Most couples cut the cake in the evening, just before the first dance. I feel this is an ideal time to do it as most couples don’t tend to like being in the spot light so it sort of kills two birds with one stone if you can do the cake cutting and go straight in to the first dance. Sometimes I’ve seen the cake cutting at 8.00 and then the first dance at 8.30 or vice versa. To me it always seems like a bit of a vibe breaker. You’re either interrupting the disco, just as it got going! Or you’re having to be the centre of attention twice, once for the cake and again for the dance.

Many couples now serve their wedding cake as their wedding breakfast dessert so it’s not unusual, to allow the wedding venue staff to prepare, to cut the cake as you make your entrance to the wedding breakfast.

Having said that I’ve had many couples who haven’t bothered with the cake cutting and just have it on show and let the wedding venue staff cut and prepare it in the evening. It’s your cake, you decide!

_{^{So that’s about it for words. We’ve had a bit of an amuse-bouche above to get our juices flowing and now it’s time for the final big push. Send tea!}}

I hope that little lot has given you some ideas on your own wedding cake. From here you can check out some of my real weddings on my homepage. You can also click this link if you’re interested in contacting me about your wedding photography.