You’ve just attended a beautiful, meaningful wedding ceremony of a close friend. Your heart is aflutter with the feelings of love and romance. As you make your way to the reception, you imagine the glow of candlelight, beautiful crystal, silver, and pristine china place settings at each table. You wonder what the wedding cake will look like: square or round? Three or four tiers? Elegant or whimsical? As you enter the reception hall, it is just as you imagined. Your eyes search for the center of attention: the wedding cake. Ah, yes, there it is in the center of the room, but wait, that’s not – oh it can’t be -cupcakes?

Wedding Cupcakes Take the Cake

Welcome to the latest trend in wedding cakes. No longer is the traditional tiered wedding cake a "given." Brides and grooms are choosing various alternatives to the main attraction of their wedding receptions. And cupcakes are a big hit these days. But these aren’t the homemade cupcakes your grandma used to make.

These are miniature works of art as bakers give attention to every detail, just as they would a wedding cake. And when you come to think of it, there are many advantages to using cupcakes as your "wedding cake." You can vary the flavors, the decorations, and how you display them. They can be "tiered" on pedestal cake plates for a cake table centerpiece or served at each place for a sit down reception, which eliminates the sometimes messy slicing of a cake. And they can be more cost-effective than a traditional wedding cake. What’s not to love?!

Go for Decadence with Cheesecake

Another popular alternative being used a lot is cheesecake. As a favorite restaurant dessert, cheesecake can be especially elegant and decadent. And if cheesecake is something you and your fiancé love, why not serve it at your wedding reception instead of wedding cake? It has the versatility that cupcakes have in that you can tier several cheesecakes for a wedding cake look or you can serve individual cheesecakes. And the flavor possibilities are endless: dark chocolate truffle, key lime, white chocolate with raspberry sauce, pumpkin—any flavor you like! Again, you can serve more than one flavor to appeal to all your guests.

Mini Cakes with Maximum Impact

This trend works especially well for sit-down receptions. Let the centerpiece for each table be a miniature tiered wedding cake that will serve all the people at that table. It’s a cake; it’s a centerpiece; it’s a little more personal, too.

You can vary the flavors, colors and styles of the cakes at each table or keep them all the same for a cohesive and elegant look, and you have all the design and flavor possibilities of a traditional wedding cake. Provide a cake knife and server at each table and let the guests serve themselves.

It’s Easy as Pie!

You can really rock your guests’ world when they’re expecting the same old wedding cake—and they get a luscious, homemade pie. Many brides are choosing to serve fruit or cream pies at their wedding receptions for a more informal dessert, and in many cases just because they prefer pie to cake.

For regions known for their apples, blueberries or strawberries, this is an exceptional way to show off your state’s prized fruit. You can find the best bakery in town to create beautifully baked pies, or you can ask that family member known for their great-tasting pies to lend a hand and bake them for you.

What could be better at a July wedding than a juicy, homemade apple pie? Or a tangy key-lime pie with freshly whipped cream in June? And nothing tastes better than strawberry pie when strawberries are at their peak. Whatever month your wedding is, there is a pie that will work perfectly. Again, you can serve the pies from a central location or provide a centerpiece pie at each table for the guests to help themselves.

These would look especially pretty on a silver or crystal pedestal cake plate. There’s something about eating a slice of homemade pie that brings back happy childhood memories and nostalgic feelings, which is a great way to celebrate your big day.

We All Scream for Ice Cream?

Ice cream is associated with celebrations: birthdays, July 4th, a cool treat on a hot summer night. So, why not let ice cream be the centerpiece of your wedding reception? You can offer an upscale ice cream bar where guests can create their own ice cream sundae masterpiece. Use silver ice cream scoops, silver bowls and spoons for toppings, and let your guests dig in. While it may seem unorthodox at a wedding reception, your guests will have a great time and will always remember what a blast your reception was.

So, whichever trendy alternative you choose in lieu of a traditional wedding cake, it will be a surprisingly delicious way to celebrate your wedding. And it will be another way your individuality can shine through on this special day.

A special thanks goes to:

Toria Dolce Fine Desserts & Wedding Cakes, an Ashaway Rhode Island wedding cake bakery, for their wedding cupcakes photo.

Palermo's Bakery, a wedding cake bakery in Ridgefield Park NJ, for their mini wedding cakes photo.

Callie's Confection, a bakery in Asheville NC who speicalizes in wedding cakes and pastries, for their strawberry pie photo.

Wedding cakes come in many shapes and sizes, giving you plenty of tasty options. For a traditional or contemporary wedding reception, the cake stands out as the delicious representation of the bride’s personality. The flavor of the cake may be largely a personal choice, but the shape of the cake should be as much about practicality as design. Form and function playing a large part, consider these popular shapes when choosing the wedding cake design of your dreams.

• Square wedding cakes have recently gained popularity and can be decorated to reflect a traditional or contemporary feel. Alternating corners of each tier is a simple way to add creativity while selecting a unique design for the icing definitely ups the appeal. Perhaps the easiest to cut, these cakes tend to feed more people than round wedding cakes.

• Fountain wedding cakes are tiered cakes that begin with the main tier on a pedestal surrounded by smaller tiers suspended on lower pedestals thus resembling a fountain. These tiered wedding cakes are especially popular for ease of cutting, unique design, and a decorative way to provide more cake for large weddings.

• Round wedding cakes are the most traditional but modern weddings also favor this design. Elegant wedding cakes are usually round with many layers of decoration and creative icing design. Round wedding cakes feed less people than the same sized square cake, but only marginally.

Whether tiers of wedding cake flow across the table or a simple wedding cake will do, consider this shapes and size information when visiting your local cake bakery.

Following in the footsteps of just about every other wedding accessory trend is the modern popularity of using color on the wedding cake. From pretty in pink wedding cakes to tiers of frosting and cake in blue hues, every color of the rainbow (and sometimes even rainbow patterns) can appear on the wedding cake.

So what makes colorful wedding cakes such a big deal? Traditional weddings taking place even a generation ago rarely strayed from creamy tones of icing and white wedding cake. While this style is still beautiful and Read the rest of Let Them Eat Colorful Wedding Cakes! »

Ask The Wedding Guide: I love the bride/groom razorback with veil/top hat cake topper. Can I buy just that cake topper by itself? Sharon from Knoxville Tn.

Razorback Grooms Cake

Reply:

Sharon,

This grooms cake from Fayetteville AR, is an awesome example of how cake toppers make the difference between a nice cake and an awesome cake.  I believe in this case, the topper is actually two cakes covered with frosting and fondant to create the razorbacks.  The top hat was created with fondant and the veil was a piece of tulle.  I'm sure a local Knoxville Tn bakery could recreate the razorbacks for you.   Other options would be to find a cake topper supplier in Knoxville that specializes in sport memorabila.

When I saw the picture submitted to the Wedding and Party photo gallery by Levy, I knew I wanted to know more about her wedding and the theme that inspired such a beautiful wedding cake. I thought that others planning a wedding could get some ideas from her wedding story. I sent her an email asking out their wedding and its traditions and she was gracious enough to reply.

Hi there Ma'am, I apologized too for the delay of my replies. I have 4 weddings in a row this month and checking my emails is so hard hehehe. Anyway, I want to introduce first my self to you.. I am Levy B. Tkaczyk, a wedding coordinator/ planner for 11 years now. I am happily newly married last Feb2008. I just want to showcase my wedding coz i believe that its kind of unique and unusual.

Our wedding concept/ theme is a fusion of Ethnic/ tribal theme with canadian touch since my husband is from Canada. I live in an island here in the Philippines were the tribal/ethnic tradition is still intact. I am a Sociology graduate too and am fond of indigenous materials because i find it artistic and unique. Our Wedding Cake was inspired by different tribal groups of Mindanao namely Maranao, Higaonon and Subanen. It was 4 layered chocolate cake with 6 islands.

yes, Mr. Edwin Orbe is a professional photographer. He was the one who took beautiful pictures before and during our wedding. I recommended him also to almost of my clients here. I have a website too , feel free to view it ma'am.. mybrideandgroom.multiply.com —- i put some pics of my clients this year. we have a wedding website too its www.dannylevz.com, and we have some post nup pics at rlbphotography.multiply.com so till next, i am looking forward hearing from you soon Jam. thanks really for the email , it means so much. if there's anyway that i could help just let me know too…if its okay , i would like to link ur site too over my multiply account. please take care and God bless!

Tradition Of Saving Top Layer Of The Wedding Cake

Often you’ll see a wedding cake with many layers. The top layer (the mini cake or top tier) is usually reserved for the Bride and Groom only and is removed and stored for the future. The wedding cake topper is often saved as well.

This tradition mostly likely has it origins from Rome, where the groom would toss cake over the bride in a fertility rite; this later evolved to crumbling cake over the bride‘s head. Somewhere along the time line, the Read the rest of Saving The Wedding Cake Tradition »