Not sure where to start with your wedding cake planning, then follow our 5 tips for choosing your wedding cake (during a pandemic). You’ve just started your planning? You’ve had to postpone your wedding again as government advice has changed again and not yet ordered your cake? You’re getting married this year and having a micro wedding, followed by a sequel wedding next year? Here are our 5 top tips for choosing your wedding cake (during a pandemic).
1. Think about your design
You’ve just got engaged, booked your venue and are thinking about your wedding cake. You may have a dream design you’ve considered for years. More likely, you’re scrolling through Pinterest and Instagram saving every style and size of cake you love. Now is the time to talk to your cake maker in person or via Zoom.
Instead of simply emailing and asking for a price. Our advice is to get to know your potential cake designer, have a chat and begin to understand how much time, talent and hard work goes into every bespoke wedding cake.
In the first instance we encourage you to order a delicious taster box filled with five of our most popular cake flavours and/ or a selection of macarons for you to enjoy at home. As your taster box is on its way to you, we’ll send you our digital wedding cake brochure so that you can get to know us and answer some of your initial questions.
Then, we’ll arrange a video call or get together in person at our cake studio in Maidstone, kent, as we’d love to find out more about you both and your wedding day as a whole. We want to learn everything about your style of wedding, how you want your guests to feel and of course your initial wedding cake ideas. From this, we’ll create an initial proposal for you and then on booking, a hand drawn working sketch of your wedding cake for you to keep forever.
2. Do I really need a wedding cake?
Of course you do! If cake isn’t your thing, well now’s the time to get really creative. A wedding cake doesn’t necessarily mean a traditional white sugar flower multi tier extravaganza. Macaron towers are a fantastic alternative…the ‘new’ wedding cake if you will. No longer simply used as wedding favours, they are the main event.
We’d suggest a sumptuous statement tower perhaps in ombre tones, similar to Claire and Paris’ design at The Ritz, London. This was finished with a lavish flower bed at the top and base of the tower.
3. What about a micro wedding cake?
You’re planning to marry on your original wedding date followed by a sequel wedding in 2022. Rather than a traditional cake, we’d suggest something completely personal to you. An informal afternoon tea at home following your ceremony or even a picnic in the park with your closest family (following latest government advice of course!) would be perfect. Inspired by our Luxury Afternoon Teas, these include rich chocolate mini cakes layered with a rich chocolate buttercream dark chocolate ganache and handmade gold painted dark chocolate bar, luscious handmade macarons, gooey white chocolate and raspberry blondies, lightly scented vanilla and rose cookies, the fluffiest of freshly made fruit scones and a jar (with just the right amount) of our homemade jam.
This enables you to keep the intimate celebration, and even a tiny cake cutting moment. Afternoon tea from our kitchen to your home means that even if you’re not holding your micro wedding in Kent that doesn’t stop you from enjoying an afternoon tea celebration. You might consider a relaxing elopement afternoon tea with just the two of you complete with a glass of fizz in the garden.
Alternatively a single tier, highly detailed mini version of your originally planned wedding cake would be a lovely touch. Enough cake for your closest friends and family to share and a way to enjoy a taste of your wedding cake design before your 2022 sequel wedding!
4. Talking of sequel weddings…
Sequel weddings are usually a two part wedding with multiple ceremonies. With more and more weddings being postponed, we’re noticing lots of our couples choosing an intimate wedding as we’ve mentioned already on their original wedding date, followed by a bigger sequel wedding in 2022.
This ensures that the gorgeous multi tier handmade wedding cake you thought might be forever on hold is back!
5. Make sure you love your wedding cake designer’s style
Your wedding cake should taste amazing and look phenomenal. Above all it is completely bespoke and created just for you. However, like everything else every cake designer has their own style.
Are you looking for hyper realistic sugar flowers? Want to replicate the intricate design on your wedding dress in edible cake lace, just like Michelle secretly wanted for her wedding to Sean at Bradbourne House?
All unique and in a style that you love, then our designs are for you.
Remember your wedding cake is an investment. It isn’t simply photographed and forgotten about. Our 5 tips on choosing your wedding cake show the importance of it being a centrepiece, a talking point, edible work of art and most importantly is exactly what you dreamed of creating.
Venues featured: The Ritz, London; Bradbourne House, Kent
Photos: Rebecca Douglas Photography
We are Erica and Charlie Bell, a mother-daughter team creating breathtaking cakes and macarons from our studio in Maidstone, Kent. We love nothing more than getting to know our couples, creating distinctive designs that are inventive and imaginative. Our one-of-a-kind cakes that are designed down to the very last (sugar) detail. Creating cakes for couples where ordinary isn’t an option.
