Should you have a wedding cake for your wedding?

1. Cutting through the noise of social media!

Weddings are expensive. Between Pinterest and Instagram, it can feel like there’s a never-ending list of things you should and shouldn’t have for your wedding day. What makes the perfect wedding? What you can’t do without. What must you have! It’s easy for your wedding budget to quickly spiral before you’ve even realised it.

My advice is to take a moment. Sit down together with your favourite beverage, and ask yourselves a few simple questions; what will we really remember? What will our guests talk about for years to come? And where do we really want to spend our hard-earned money?

It can also help to think back to weddings you’ve already attended. What do you remember the most?

When I think back to my own wedding, apart from the excitement of having all our friends for a big party (!), I remember the table decorations my mum made from flowers from her garden in simple glass jars. I remember the sloe gin champagne cocktails inspired by my dad’s homemade sloe gin collection. I remember our cake, made by one of my bridesmaid’s mums, the local ale we had on tap (my husband’s contribution!), and the hours it took to hang what felt like hundreds of paper lanterns from the ceiling of the marquee!

What I don’t remember so clearly are the wedding favours (small bottles of sloe gin…I think?!), the bridesmaid’s gifts (jewellery….maybe?), or even much of the food (well apart from the cheese and cake).

It goes to show that different things hold different importance for different people. Often the strongest memories are those tied to people, stories, and shared moments.

2. Why many couples choose to have a wedding cake

For many couples, the wedding cake remains one of the true centre pieces of the day, a tradition that goes back, well…..a very long time! But it’s more than tradition. It’s an experience.

A wedding is often the only time that you can really justify spending a significant amount of money on a cake. And not just any cake, the cake of your dreams. You can choose whatever flavours you love, you can choose the shape, whether you want a traditional cake, a bright green cake, a quirky cake, a crazy cake, a flower cake…the list goes on – you can choose whatever cake you want because it is your wedding. How amazing is that!!

A wedding cake with fresh flower seasonal bunting

3. The cake cutting moment – More than just a photo

The cake cutting isn’t just about the photograph. It is a moment to pause and to have some fun!

One of the best pieces of advice I was given before my wedding was to deliberately take moments throughout the day to stop and take it all in. The day flies by! The cake cutting naturally creates one of those pauses.

You can make it a memorable moment cutting it with a sword, or giving each other a bite, or, if that makes you cringe, just take a moment to soak in the sight of all your friends and family celebrating with you.

I recently saw a couple who had a book-shaped cake, the titles reflected how they had met. They could actually pick up the book and take a bite – how memorable and personal is that! Another trend I’ve seen is for a long rectangular cake with candles, where the couple start at opposite ends of the cake, blowing out the candles until they meet in the middle and kiss – think the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene!

4. Making the cake work for your budget

If cost is a concern, don’t write off the cake immediately, there are other ways to make it work.

One option is to serve the cake as dessert, which is exactly what we did at our wedding. We chose carrot cake for our wedding cake (the choice of cake during our long cycle rides around Kent!) and served it as dessert because we wanted to make sure that all our guests had a chance to enjoy it. We skipped a separate dessert and instead used the saved money to provide a cheese board, which was perfect because we love cheese!

Lemon cake with dried lemons and foliage

5. When a large cake doesn’t make sense

Want the look of a large cake but only having an intimate wedding? There are plenty of great cake design options that create impact without requiring every tier to be cake.

You could opt for a three-tier cake with a clear central tier, a floating tier design, or a two-tier cake finished with a statement topper to balance the proportions. Thoughtful design can achieve the visual effect you love without the unnecessary cost or ending up with too much cake.

6. Flexible options: A small cake, cupcakes or a dessert table

If you are still unsure if a large centrepiece is still for you, how about opting for a small cutting cake paired with a variety of cupcake flavours. This is a popular and practical option that allows you to choose multiple flavours and enables guests to find their favourite. Especially helpful if you have several dietary requirements to cater for.

And if cake really isn’t for you, then why not opt for a dessert table instead, it makes a wonderful and very tasty alternative! It gives you complete freedom to choose a menu of your favourite treats! Guests can dip in and out and will love the variety this allows.

A winter wedding dessert table

7. Practical considerations

There are also some practical details worth thinking about, the timing of your day, the season, your venue, guest numbers and logistics.

Traditional venues are usually well set up for large wedding cakes, with suitable space to display them and temperature control. But if you’re planning something less conventional - a beach wedding, a restaurant reception, or a celebration in the middle of nowhere, this can affect how easy it is to deliver, store, and serve the cake.

In these cases, cupcakes can be a more flexible option. They’re easier to transport, more stable without a cool room, simpler to move around in tight spaces, and can even be collected a day or two in advance if needed (no need to worry about a collapsed cake in your car!). It’s also worth considering who will cut and serve the cake – something that’s easy with catering staff, but tricker at a self-organised celebration.

Final thoughts

This may have given you more to think about rather than narrowing things down, but at least you now know the options available to you. Once you’ve explored them, you can decide together what truly matters.

Just remember, no one has even been sad while eating cake!