Beautiful Wedding

When it comes time to choose the dessert for your wedding, you will have a number of decisions to make and options to consider. One of the primary considerations is wedding cake designs. Wedding cake designs run the gamut for simple and elegant to multiple tiered and exotic. Many brides take the cue for their wedding cake designs from the style and tone of their wedding as well as the overall theme. For example, a bride who is having a Cinderella or Fairy Tale themed wedding might consider wedding cake designs that include a carriage and castle.

Even if you aren’t having a theme, that doesn’t mean that the wedding cake designs you look at have to be boring. Many years ago wedding cake designs that incorporated lights and fountains were extremely popular. Today, the trend is leaning towards sleeker and simpler lines in wedding cake designs. A multiple tiered cakes decorated with fresh flowers can be a refreshing break from wedding cake designs that appear overdone.

The size of wedding cake designs generally depends on the number of guests that you need to feed. Various layers feed a different number of guests, so if you are having a hundred or less guests all you may really need is a small one or two tiered cake. On the other hand, if you will be hosting a formal wedding reception with hundreds of guests in attendance you’ll definitely want to chat with your baker or caterer to insure that the wedding cake designs you consider will yield enough servings for all your guests.

Wedding cake designs are usually more important than the actual taste of the cake, as many brides use the wedding cake at the central focus of their reception’s decorations. In this regard, it is important to make sure you choose an icing that will hold up well under the pressure and stress of the day. Keep in mind that while a fondant icing generally doesn’t taste as yummy as a butter cream icing, it is definitely the icing of choices for many wedding cake designs. A fondant icing will yield a smooth design that is easy to accessorize with other decorations. A fondant icing will also hold up better to heat and humidity than a butter cream, which is an important consideration if you will be having an outdoor wedding. Ganache is a rich dark chocolate icing, but it does not hold up well under heat at all. Ganache is best preserved for indoor weddings. Royal icing is the rock hard icing that is generally used to create all those lovely little flowers that decorate many wedding cake designs.

If you are concerned about the stability of your cake but still want a large and fabulous design you might consider having your baker make up a ‘dummy’ wedding cake that looks fabulous at the reception. With this strategy, only the first layer is actually cake; the others are for show only. This way the servers don’t have to try and dis-assemble the cake in order to serve the guests and risk the whole cake falling apart. Instead, after the bride and groom have taken the traditional first slice, the guests are inconspicuously served cake slices from the kitchen, cut from a beautifully decorated sheet cake. This is also a great cost cutting strategy.

Weddings are becoming bigger, more expensive and more exotic with each year. Many brides and grooms are waiting later in life to marry, after they have established a career and set aside a comfortable savings account and refuse to settle for plain vanilla weddings or wedding cakes. Everything from the colors to the dresses and of course, even the wedding cake has become very exotic. Remember the days when fancy wedding cakes came with a fountain? Today, the excitement in wedding cakes is much more likely to come from the flavors used in the cake than the actual decorations. Let’s take a stroll through a gallery of exotic wedding cakes
Mocha, cappuccino, espresso and latte cakes have become the rage in the last few years ever since a certain sitcom set the world on fire a decade ago and coffee houses became the place to hang out. Since then everyone has become hooked on flavored coffee, large coffee mugs and coffee flavored everything. If you are a true coffee connoisseur you might think of giving a coffee flavored wedding cake a try. It’s different, unique and your wedding guests are sure to love it!

If you like variety and think it’s the spice of life, think about having a different flavor for every tier of your wedding cake. Sound like too much? A lot of people are using this option and the wedding guests are raving over it. So, what flavors should you use? Well, really anything goes. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon-you name it! If you’re still wary, keep in mind that the only way you’ll be able to tell the difference is in the taste of each individual layer. The cake as a whole will appear uniform as each layer will be decorated the same-unless you want to be really bold and do a different design on each layer!

Do you and your friends love the taste of liqueur? A number of bakers and caterers are specializing in this type of wedding cake and it has proven to be a popular choice. Fruit and citrus flavored cakes have also taken center stage recently and if you feel like being really fruity you can always embellish and decorate your wedding cake with fruit-orange slices, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries and even lemon slices may a wonderful and unique wedding cake decoration.

Another idea in exotic wedding cakes that has taken the world of baking by storm are flowers. Any number of fresh flowers can be used to accent your cake and while some flowers are actually edible, in most cases you would want to make sure you remove the flower decorations before serving your exotic wedding cake to your guests.

If you’re still not sure an exotic wedding cake is right for you, consider scheduling an appointment with a local baker or caterer and asking them about their gallery of exotic wedding cakes. They will be all too happy to provide a taste test to help you choice among the many delicious flavors.