DIY Wedding Cakes: How to Decorate Your Own Wedding Cake

DIY Wedding Cakes: How to Decorate Your Own Wedding Cake

DIY Wedding Cakes for LDS wedding receptions — Photo Courtesy of Watasch Studios

It feels great to have guests marvel over your wedding cake at the reception and be able to grin and say, “I made that.” Making your own wedding cake is something to be proud of, and it’s much more budget-friendly than hiring a professional cake designer. But before pulling out your cake pans and your rolling pin, take a close look at the pros and cons of a DIY wedding cake.

Lots of LDS brides tackle making and decorating their own wedding cakes, but think long and hard about whether you’re up to the challenge before you commit to doing it yourself. Even if you have the expertise, you just might not have…read more

How to Display the Tiers of Your Cake

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Wedding Cake Arrangements: How to Display the Tiers of Your Cake

How to display an LDS wedding cake — Photo Courtesy of Linsey Hale Photography

So you’ve decided on the colors, shapes, and styles you like – but have you given much thought to the final arrangement of your wedding cake tiers?

Most wedding cakes have between two and five tiers – or levels – with the most common number of tiers being four. Of course, how many tiers you need depends on the size of your guest list and the diameter and shape of each tier.

Wedding cakes have a prominent place on their own dedicated “cake table” near the front of your reception room, slightly off to the side of the head table where the bride, groom, and wedding party are seated.

How you show off your cake on the cake table is just as important as…read more

How to Cut Wedding Cake: Step-by-Step Guides with diagrams

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How to Cut Wedding Cake: Step-by-Step Guides with diagrams

When cutting wedding cut first remove the top tier from the cake stands or from the other wedding cake tiers. The top tier is usually saved for the first anniversary. Begin cutting the 2nd tier, then the 3rd and 4th and continue until all the wedding cake is cut. In general wedding cake is cut into pieces approximately 1 inch wide x 2 inches deep x 4 inches high (about 2 layers). Remember, the order of cutting is still the same even if…read more

wedding cake cutting instructions — Round Wedding Cake Tiers

10 Best Budget Wedding Cake Tips

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Budget Wedding Cake Tips for LDS Brides and Grooms

10 best budget tips for wedding cakes — Photo Courtesy of Amelia Lyon Photography

Your wedding cake is sure to be the most expensive dessert you’ll ever serve. Many LDS couples cringe at the thought of spending $800 on a single cake – after all, haven’t we been taught to be thrifty? While you may not be able to take the sting completely out of paying for your wedding cake, here are 10 ways to make sure that your cake eats up less of your wedding budget.

1. Have minimal decorations on your cake. Every delicate icing rose and fancy decorating technique costs the cake decorator time, which costs you money. Plainer cakes can be every bit as breath-taking, without the extra expense.

2. Decorate with silk flowers, not fresh. Most wedding cakes are decorated with flowers, and the cake table strewn with flower petals. Instead of paying your florist to deliver fresh flowers, buy your own silk flowers and save money on your wedding cake decorations.

3. Have a small wedding cake. Wedding cakes are paid for by the 2”x4” slice, meaning that larger cakes cost substantially more than smaller ones. Display a small wedding cake at the reception. If it doesn’t cover all your guests, then have…read more

The LDS Bride and Groom’s First Slice of Wedding Cake

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Cake Cutting Ceremony: The Bride and Groom’s First Slice of Wedding Cake

How to cut LDS wedding cake — Photo Courtesy of Ravenberg Photography

The wedding cake cutting ceremony is a timeless wedding tradition. No reception, no matter how casual, would feel complete without it. It’s important to plan your cake cutting ceremony ahead of time and communicate those plans clearly with your photographer, your caterer, and your band or DJ to make sure it goes off without a hitch.

Usually, the wedding cake remains on display for…read more

Wedding Cake Decorators, How to Choose

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How to choose a cake decorator — Photo Courtesy of Kimberly Davis Photography

How to Choose a Wedding Cake Decorator

LDS brides and grooms get their wedding cakes from all sorts of designers, from a top-dollar professional wedding cake specialist to their talented Aunt Miranda who will do it for free. Accounting for price, style, and taste, how do you choose a wedding cake decorator?

The fun part is browsing through bridal magazines and online wedding cake photo galleries for pictures of the intricate, unique, and always beautiful wedding cakes. Who knew that food could be so much fun just to look at? Don’t worry about finding “your” wedding cake just yet, but do…read more

Fondant vs. Buttercream

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Fondant vs. Buttercream: Appearance, Price, Durability, and Taste

differences of fondant and buttercream — Photography Courtesy of Photos by Wendy G., Cake by Midway Country Corner Bakery

The majority of all wedding cakes are made with a smooth, flawless layer of icing on top. If brides are interested in this type of cake, then the first decision they will need to make is whether they want to use buttercream icing or fondant.

Fondant is a sweet icing made of sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin. Buttercream, like its name suggests, is made with butter, sugar, and milk. Both types of icing are rolled out flat with a rolling pin, draped over the wedding cake, smoothed down, and dried to create a porcelain-like finish.

Let’s see how buttercream and fondant stack up in terms of appearance, price, durability, and taste.

The smooth, sleek look of fondant is hard to duplicate. The cakes featured in wedding magazines are almost always fondant cakes because of their superior workability. If how the cake looks in pictures is your main concern, fondant is probably the way to go.

Though it’s not easy to recreate a fondant look with buttercream, it’s possible in…read more

Shapes for Wedding Cakes

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Wedding Cake Shapes

When you first walk into a professional wedding cake bakery, the first thing you will probably notice is that wedding cakes come in all different shapes and sizes. The shape you choose for your cake will have a dramatic impact on the cake’s overall appearance.

Round tiers represent the classic, traditional wedding cake. In fact, round wedding cakes were all that were available when your mother was getting married!

Not to say that round tiers are old-fashioned. They have a soft, timeless appearance. The circle is a well-known symbol for eternity, making a round cake more than appropriate for a wedding.

Square tiers have recently become very popular. Their clean-line geometrical shape makes them very eye-catching on the head table at your wedding reception.

Square cakes are also very versatile: decorate with bright colors and bold designs for an ultra-modern cake or soften the look with more classic colors and patterns to make them appear more traditional.

Though less common, some bakeries may offer…read more