Expert Advice

How to choose your cake

The cake is often the main focus of the wedding reception. The choice of wedding cake is not as easy as it looks, there are many factors to consider. The best way to start is to decide firstly, how much you want to spend on it and how many guests does it need to feed. Knowing these facts allows you to put into perspective the type of wedding cake you can realistically have.

When you have your size and budget in mind the next thing to consider is the shape, flavour and decoration. Many brides like to co-ordinate the cake with the colour theme of the wedding. (Any of the cakes in our Gallery can be produced in any colour.) The size of the cake is probably the most important factor. (There is a size guide on the homepage.) If the wedding party is large then obviously a multi-tiered cake is needed. However, even if the wedding party is small many brides still want the impact that a tiered cake provides at the reception. A way round this is to have an appropriate sized bottom tier and further iced and decorated dummy cakes. There are a few benefits to this idea, not least the cost factor. One or two iced and decorated dummy cakes are considerably cheaper than actual cakes and no one need know!

Another cost cutting method for a very large wedding is to have an extra iced but undecorated cutting cake. The advantage of this is that it is then possible to have smaller decorated cakes for the visual impact at the reception. The undecorated cutting cake would be cut behind the scenes and distributed amongst the guests and and again no one need know!

Style of Cake

Next you will need to choose the style of cake you require. Round, hexagonal, square-stacked, pillared, separated...individual or a cup cake tower, the choice is endless. It is worth remembering that if you decide on a fruitcake you will need to order it at least four months in advance, in order for it to be rich and fully matured. We require one months notice for sponge, chocolate and carrot etc.

Do you want sugar flowers, characters, fountains, feathers or fresh flowers? We supply insecticide free flowers from a local source, if you wish to use your own florist you must ensure they are placed in a suitable container and are not directly in contact with the cake.