This year weddings are getting groovy again, with retro theming transporting us right back to the 1970s. Whether you go all-out with bell-bottoms and disco balls or just include a few stylishly subtle call backs to the eclectic era, there’s no denying it – in 2024, nuptials are hip again. We’re going to help you design your 70s wedding cake with these 7 off-the-hook trends for the tastiest part of your wedding day.
1. 70s Wedding Colours – Clashing Is Cool
The 2020s didn’t invent colour clashing – the 70s did! Bold brights, warm nostalgic tones and colours that both contrast and complement should be the focus of your mood board for your 1970s wedding. Burnt orange, mustard yellow, avocado green and that very specific shade of brown will transport you back in time in a flash, so consider using them in your wedding cake design.
You can either fearlessly go all-out with audaciously coloured cake tiers, or incorporate the 70s shades within patterns and cake decor. This cake we created for a recent 1970s wedding photoshoot (pictured below) features a base tier hand decorated with deep oranges and browns, almost reminiscent of a wallpaper pattern from the decade in question! We doubled down on the colour palette with juxtaposing magenta and tangerine sugar flowers, for a wedding cake that marries the 70s with modern styling.
2.Geometric Patterns – Psychedelic Turned Chic
Vibrant and self-expressive, geometric patterns gained popularity in the 1970s. If you want to reflect your individualism in your wedding cake, adding swirls, circles and retro repeating shapes will help you travel back in time in your own unique way.
At Bluebell Kitchen we are specialists in hand painted pattern work, so your 70s wedding cake is in safe hands. We can add geometric shapes sparingly or get really bold with them – it all depends on just how committed you are to the theme!
3. 70s Textures For Your Wedding Cake
The 1970s famously sported tactile decor and textured interiors, and we can bring these to life with three dimensional finishes to your wedding cake. We love playing with texture in both fondant and buttercream, so no matter your preference we can achieve your desired effect – ruffles, sugar molding, bas relief patterns, cake lace…or how about some hippie-style edible macrame?
Take a look at this Vogue article to see why 1970s interiors are all the rage again in recent years, and explore the different ways we can decorate your wedding cake with fondant and buttercream our own recent blogs – 1970s Textures in Fondant and in Buttercream.
4. Flower Power!
This particular 70s wedding trend gets us really excited – as sugar flower specialists, we believe that flower power never really went away. If you want to lean into your nostalgic nuptials, going big on the blooms is one way to take your guests back 50 years. Whether you resonate with the deeper contextual and cultural meaning of the Flower Power movement or just love fabulous florals, this is one trend you shouldn’t miss for a 70s wedding.
Get lost in the meadow for a while with our recent blog on choosing your sugar flowers, then pop back for our final three 1970s trends for your groovy gathering.
5. 70s Wedding Trends: Awesome Asymmetry and Non-Traditional Tiers
If you want to embrace the experimental, boundary-pushing nature of the 70s then we can get seriously creative with your wedding cake. Asymmetrical designs and unusual, gravity-defying cake tiers make your design more interesting to look at – a seventies show-stopper!
We can achieve asymmetry with texture or patterns, or by adding sugar flowers or a cascade of macarons that follow a wonderfully wonky trajectory. Intriguing choices for tempting tier designs include floating tiers, acrylic spacers (which you can fill with florals!) or macaron towers with your bold 70s colour tones included.
Our blog on making your wedding cake taller without adding more cake is full of ideas for scrumptious, sky-scraping sweet treats – we’re sure you’ll find a design you’d like to go steady with in there.
6. Macaron Magic for Your 70s Wedding
You can call us biased but we think macarons belong at almost every wedding, thanks to their versatility and endless design options. They can feature as part of your 70s wedding cake, either in macaron tower form or as unique decor in place of sugar flowers, or double up as bespoke wedding favours.
Designing macarons to suit a 70s theme gives you so many choices…we can design bold, clashing macs to match your colour scheme, hand paint with little geometric patterns, add groovy floral designs or shimmering disco-ball silver elements.
If you’re sold on a stylish 70s wedding and want to create a Casanova of a cake together, boogie down to our contact form and get in touch – we can’t promise the puns will stop, but we can promise your nostalgic wedding cake dreams can come to life in our Kitchen!
P.S., for more insight into how weddings have changed over time, take a look at this editorial we were part of: Weddings Through The Ages
Photography: Fiona Kelly Photography, The Bostons Photography
