You can have a wedding cake in almost every style your heart desires, including flavours that our grandparents might never have dreamed of! Gone are the days of boring wedding cakes, both in terms of appearance and taste. But this incredible opportunity can seem a bit overwhelming. With anything and everything possible, how can you choose? That’s where we hope our list of 2023 trends for unique wedding cake designs can help.
Now, trends for unique wedding cake designs might seem like a bit of an oxymoron. We looked at some of the 2023 trends for wedding cakes and, though they were all fantastic, we didn’t see our couples reflected in any of them! Taking matters into our own hands, and without further ado, let us present to you our top 5 trends for 2023 for couples who want trend-led unique wedding cake designs that are also personal to them:
1. How can you make a macaron wedding cake unique?
If you can’t decide between a wedding cake and macarons…why not go for both? Our macaron wedding cakes are a single or two-tier wedding cake added to the top or base of a macaron tower, so you get the best of both worlds…in our opinion!
We started designing these a few years ago, and they’ve really taken off for 2023 couples: so much so, that in one week we had five enquiries for this style alone! But don’t worry: as we work closely with you to create something totally bespoke, each of this style of design means you’ll still have a completely unique wedding cake.
Alternatively, you could take this even further, and have a tiered wedding cake adorned with a cascade of macarons. Have the macarons in a matching colour, like Madeleine and James did for their Claridge’s wedding, or in a magical ombré style, like Georgina and Oliver. Whatever colour you choose, you’ll still get the traditional wedding cake-cutting moment, but with a trendy addition that most guests won’t have seen before.
To read more about Madeleine and James’ cascade of macarons for a luxury wedding cake at Claridges, in the heart of London’s Mayfair click here.
Or if you’re struggling to decide between a wedding cake with macarons or sugar flowers, click here to read more about how Georgina and Oliver chose both!
2. Unique fondant iced wedding cakes
If 2022 was the year of the buttercream wedding cake, 2023 is our year of fondant icing!
Forget supermarket cakes covered in a super thick, mass produced fondant finish. Instead, imagine wafer thin, lightly sweet fondant icing layered on top of decadent, handmade Belgian white chocolate ganache, wrapped around the delicious cake itself. Melt in the mouth!
With this super sharp, tall, flawless finish, you can let your creativity run riot with ideas for unique wedding cake designs. It’s the perfect base for texture, be that handmade lace inspired by your wedding dress as shown above, fabric-like sugar ruffles, or delicate sugar flowers! In particular fondant iced wedding cakes are a great way of marrying the classic with the contemporary, such as bold pops of colour against a white or ivory background.
3. Hand painted marble
Hand painted wedding cakes have been around for a while, and so have marble, but what makes ours such unique wedding cake designs is that we combine the two. Our unusual, abstract marble effect is hand painted almost like an oil painting on a canvas!
We take the tones of your wedding flowers and general palette, and create an abstract marble effect to match. These can be bright and bold, catching the eye immediately, or softer and more subtle, and act as a background to your sugar flowers. For the final finishing touch we use metallic paints, so that they shine both figuratively and literally.
If you love hand painted marble click to read all about Zahra and Phillip’s stunning wedding at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace.
4. Adventurous flavours
Although this isn’t technically a unique wedding cake design, it’s definitely a unique wedding cake trend that we’re seeing more and more of: couples going for unexpected, untraditional, unforgettable cake flavours.
We always recommend our couples experiment with less traditional wedding cake flavours, because it’s a really underrated way of making your cake even more ‘you’. (It’s also why we always include a unique flavour in our couples’ tasting boxes alongside the mouthwatering classics, just in case they fall in love with it and find their new favourite flavour for their wedding day!)
And if you still like the idea of the more classic flavours, such as Vanilla Berry (our signature take on Victoria Sponge), Luscious Lemon or Rich Chocolate, why not choose a statement flavour for just one of your tiers? Simply changing up one flavour can make your cake unique; plus, mixing and matching your flavours means you can maximise the taste.
One of our most popular up and comers is our Orange Blossom and Almond flavour: fluffy Valencian orange oil sponge infused with delicate orange blossom water, and complemented with a bold almond buttercream. Another is our Earl Grey, Elderflower, Lemon and Blackberry: moist, fragrant Earl Grey Tea Cake layered with homemade blackberry compote, light elderflower syrup and zesty lemon curd buttercream. Droolworthy, right!
For more inspiration as to how you can make your wedding flavours more unique to you, have a read of our ultimate guide to flavours here.
5. Hand painted macaron wedding favours
Admittedly, again not a wedding cake, but no wedding is complete without including macarons somewhere. Macaron place settings have been around for a while, but we’re seeing a shift from simple favour boxes of macarons to gourmet, hand-painted, personalised macarons at each place setting instead. Wedding favours have definitely moved on from retro sugared almonds.
This might be a selection of mini hand painted flowers to complement your wedding bouquet or single large hand painted macaron in the same style as your invitations and colours. You could even have a totally abstract design if you wanted to make them super contemporary!
Why not level it up even more for place settings? Instead of wedding cookies, you could add a personalised macaron at each place setting, with each of your guests’ initials painted onto them in an ornate design as shown above. Your guests are guaranteed to talk about these unique macaron details for years to come. They are also incredibly moreish.
2023 wedding cakes
So there you have it – our top 5 trends for unique wedding cake designs in 2023. If you’re looking for a jaw-dropping, unforgettable wedding cake for your big day – whether it’s something we’ve mentioned above, or a different design idea you’ve had – we’d LOVE to chat!
Get in touch with us here, and we’ll get back to you ASAP to discuss designing the wedding cake of your dreams
Photos: Fiona Kelly Photography, Barker Evans, Louise Dettmer Photography, The Unbridled, Katie Rogers Photography
Stylist: Stag Cottage Flowers
