Give Your Wedding Cakes a Place of Honor at Your Reception

All of the excitement of the wedding planning, the anticipation of the marriage ceremony and the relief of remembering all of the details of your vows finally has a channel of expression at the wedding reception. With the exchange of wedding bands done: now there's gleaming symbol of your love wrapped around your finger. Slowly as you make your way to the location where the celebration will take place, the reality of successfully organizing one of the biggest days of your life begins to sink in.

After accepting the hundreds of compliments, the "ooohs-and-ahhhs" from loving family members and friends, your guests will shift their attention to the supporting stars of the moment: the cakes. More often today, couples are enjoying honoring the tradition of having a "bride's" cake and a "groom's cake" to express the personalities of both partners.

In the past the bride's cake was the most elaborate, but today bakers are becoming increasingly creative in their designs for the groom's cake. Transforming it from a simple one layer chocolate dream to whatever best reflects the grooms favorite things; sports, music or even video games.

With the numerous folklore legends about the good fortune that comes with a wedding invitation, almost as many surround the delicacy that toasts the newlyweds fresh start in life with champagne. Only second in significance to the ring the cakes are no longer hidden away until it's time for the cutting ceremony. Today it's quite common to have the wedding cakes placed in a prominent position where all the guests can see them on tables with festive decorations.

Although today's couples pride themselves on civility at the feast of their wedding, with great effort (and money) spent to create a memorable edible tribute to love, this was not always the case. The cake of today comes from humble beginnings and was in fact, the source of more than a few scary moments for the bride and groom. Just a few centuries ago, it was a simple, one layer affair. But the idea that sleeping with a piece of cake under your pillow would cause a person to dream of their true love sent passions flying after several pints of mead had been drunk in the toasts to the lucky couple.

The tables for the cakes are placed in clear view but carefully out of the way of any of the activities to avoid any mishaps. Decorations for the table include candles, photos of the couple and other symbols of the wedding. Wedding cakes charm pulls have also been used as a special way to acknowledge the bridal attendants. After the bride and groom cut the first slice, each bridesmaid have their choice of their piece from a special layer embedded with symbols of wedding rings, love, happiness, good luck, true romance and other sentiments associated with a wedding. When a special cake has been made just for this ceremony, most couples will wait until this is over to cut the cake.

Which cake gets cut first? Tradition holds that it's the bride's cake that is cut by the bride and groom. The groom's cake is served along with any other deserts. Depending on the amount of decoration on the cake, and how the cake is structured, attendants should carefully remove them before the guests are served. Tradition holds that the first slice of cake is taken from the bottom layer. However, make sure that the order of the cutting is done with care, especially for one that has several layers supported by pillars. As you begin to cut slices away, this will alter the balance of the cake.

Giving your wedding cakes the spotlight adds to the excitement of the reception. After the bouquet toss by the bride and the garter removal by the groom, the cake cutting is usually seen as the finale of the reception, giving the bride and groom the opportunity to continue the festivities or get ready to depart for their honeymoon.

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