So, if you were a wedding guest, how much attention do you pay to the cake? Do you expect to see a three-tiered creation, extravagantly decorated, etc.? How far from traditional can you go without being tacky, as in, just sheet cakes with Congratulations, Rubystreak & Mike! on it, or what?
I guess I’m wondering how people perceive the wedding cake, how non-traditional we could get and still be acceptible seeming to our guests.
If you have an open bar, nobody cares about the cake.
If you don’t even have a cash bar, it better be damn good cake.
Q: how much attention do you pay to the cake?
A: Zero.
I don’t care about the food, drinks, cake or dancing. I’m there to give my wishes to the ones getting married. I prefer the less formal after wedding reception where things don’t have to be perfect.
My sweet tooth is almost nonexistant. By US standards, drop the “almost”. So all I care about the cake is Keepthatthingoutofme.
And I prefer celebrations to be as informal as possible. Having to buy clothes that I’ll never be able to wear again pisses the hell out of me… my First Communion dress was rewearable at my request*, and now I have to spend big bucks for some second cousin? Puh-leeeze!
Don’t care about the cake at all and often don’t bother to try it. I usually spend about thirty seconds looking at the cake going “Awwww, pretty” and that’s about it. I have noticed a trend towards cakes having yummy fillings and I appreciate that, most cakes used to be made of spongy sawdust and just beautifully decorated.
I think it’s often one of the single biggest wastes of money in a wedding.
As long as it tastes good, I don’t much care what it looks like. I’ve endured dry, flavorless creations with too-sugary icing because that’s how it was done.
Correction, the idea of a Krispy Kreme donut cake sends me into fits of shuddering. But a delicious sheet cake would impress me more than a multi-tiered inedible bit of frippery. Moreso if the cake was chocolate. Yum!
I think a sheet cake might be a little tacky – esp. if you get it at the supermarket and have them do while-you-wait lettering (“no… R-U-B-Y-S…”). But beyond that, no particular expectations – get something yummy and don’t worry about the frou-frou crap.
I’m not a fan of cake and don’t really care about how it looks.
At many of the wedding halls in Japan, they have a huge, multi-tiered plastic cake that sits on the main table as decoration. Some even have a removable slice so the bride and groom can pose for cake-cutting photos. For the actual dessert, they serve individual pastries or something more practical to cook and serve. Never known anyone to complain.
Personally? The cake doesn’t matter to me a bit.
It’s pretty low on my list of cares at a wedding. If it’s a horrifying cake, I’ll notice for about thirty seconds before I forget it forever. If it’s a spectacularly tasty and beautiful cake, I might remember it for the rest of my life. But if it’s a stress for you, go for the forgettable cake.
Actually, there was one disastrous wedding cake that I remember. It was a homemade three-tiered carrot cake, constructed by someone who didn’t understand architecture very well. It collapsed about fifteen minutes into the reception, and I can still remember the panicked family trying to re-right it.
Even then, though, I also remember it as a very tasty cake, and I think it was awesome that the family baked their own cake.
Daniel
As a kid, I was dragged to many weddings, and often, the cake was the only thing to get excited about.
I like a sturdy cake, one that you really have to cut with a fork, not the ones that disintegrate at the touch of a tine. No fillings either, and nothing chocolate. Wedding cake is white and that’s it. Buttercream frosting, if you please. Fondant frosting is great for looking at, but horrible to eat. Patterns such as basketweaving or rosebuds are a must, not because they look good, although they do, but see below.
No wedding cake has yet surpassed my cousin Mel’s, in 1979. It was everything I said: solid, buttercream, and utterly rococo in how it was frosted. Barely a millimeter of surface unadorned with scrolls and buds and beads of frosting. Which meant an abundance of frosting! That one set the bar for wedding cakes, all right. The one thing I regret about not having a big wedding is that I didn’t get to have one of those.
Cake is my entire reason for going. Sometimes I get very disappointed. My friends, for example, try new things. One had bananas foster instead of cake. One had spice cake. Spice cake for a wedding! The open bar didn’t console me much. My sister didn’t even have any cake, which kind of moots the point for getting married, imho.
My cake was three tiers of chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla, with the most delicious icing. I ate about three pieces and then was able to take almost the entire top home with me to enjoy over a period of weeks! Or was it days?
I should start crashing weddings. Too many of my friends are already married 
I don’t *remember * a single cake from any of the dozens of weddings I’ve been to. And I was involved in picking some of them!
When I think wedding cake, I think tiered, decorated with mounds of white frosting, and probably having a little bride and groom on the top. So I guess I kind of do expect that as a wedding cake.
On the other hand, it certainly isn’t neccessary that you do that–and traditional wedding cakes are darned expensive.
Another option would be to have a simply decorated cake (either sheet or tiered) with fresh flowers arranged on it.
Incidently, I’d skip the writing on the sheet cake. Sheet cake is fine, writing seems unneccessary/undesirable for a wedding cake. Don’t ask me why. Go simple or floral or maybe ribbony, no words.
And if you are going for a sheet cake, make extra sure it tastes good. Or else serve other deserts along with the cake.
Cake is one of the few high points of weddings. I’ll take taste over looks, but looks are nice, too.
I don’t care for cake, so I’ll usually skip it or take the very smallest piece to be polite.
As long as they are smashing into each other’s faces, that is all I care about!
I don’t particularly care about the cake, I prefer cookies and other desserty things to cake. However, a sheet cake says “birthday at the bowling alley” rather than “wedding” to me.
I don’t recall from your last wedding thread how many guests you expect, but a local baker may be able to get you a nice cake for a reasonable price. I was charged $2 per slice by my baker, 100 guests = $200 for a 3 tier cake.
I think the type of cake can fit the type of wedding…if it’s a formal, traditional wedding, it makes sense to have a formal, traditional cake. If it’s a more casual wedding, a more casual cake would be fine, and not look out of place or “unweddingish.” The most important thing is for it to taste good!
Did you leave out a “not” in that sentence? :dubious: You did leave out an “it”.
I can’t bring to mind the quality or look of the cake from any wedding I’ve ever gone to, including my own.
