How to Select an Alternative Wedding Cake

Weddings are growing and changing in every way on every day. There is still a standardized idea of what a perfect wedding should be in America; however its boundaries are being pushed all the time. The changing face of weddings is reflected accurately in the changing face of wedding cakes. There are myriad cakes to choose from, so here’s how to select an alternative wedding cake.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Baker

1. Consider the setting of your wedding. Is it a summer wedding outside? Are you having a beach wedding with sand and salt in the air? These are factors that will limit your choices of wedding desert.

2. Think outside the cake box. There’s no rule saying that the wedding desert has to be a cake. An alternative wedding cake might be a wedding flan, a wedding brulee or a wedding sundae bar.

3. Consider the size of your wedding party and the tastes of the guests. An all-organic tofu wedding cake might seem like a great idea to your fiancé and you, but if most of the guests won’t like it, you might want to at least have a plan B.

4. Fit your alternative cake to the rest of the wedding. If you’ve got a southwest-themed wedding, the alternative cake should reflect that in some way. Make sure the frosting (if there is any) matches the color scheme of the wedding.

5. Shop around. Buying online can be risky for a wedding cake, but there are certainly more radical deserts online than there is likely to be at your hometown bakery.

Tips & Warnings

• Make your taste tests the same way you would with a traditional wedding cake. It’s still got to taste good no matter how stylish your wedding desert may be.
• Ask for third and fourth opinions from your friends and families. Pushing the envelope of a traditional wedding can be fun and invigorating, but you don’t want to cross the line into poor taste.
• Depending on the type of wedding desert you have, you may need to forgo some other traditions such as the bride and groom figurines on top of the cake or the saving of one tier of the cake for the first anniversary.
• Ordering your alternative wedding cake about 8 weeks in advance is a good bet to allow for any complications that might arise along the way.
• Be prepared for criticism, but hope for the best.