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Photo credit Ashlee Brooke
Wedding cakes have come a long way! From gaudy white towers to tiny, colorful works of art, we’ve seen wedding cake trends come and go. Today’s newlyweds are drawing inspiration from a long history of wedding cake trends while also using new ideas and technologies to create exciting cakes that taste great and look phenomenal.
In our next blog, we’ll explore what you can expect to see in wedding cake trends in 2025. But first, let’s take a look at where wedding cake traditions came from and what trends have changed them over the years.
The Weird History of Wedding Cakes
The tradition of wedding cakes in the United States came from the customs that early settlers brought with them from Europe, but the story is a lot older (and stranger) than that.
Ancient Rome
At weddings in ancient Rome, brides and grooms of the wealthy patrician class would share a wheat cake that was considered a sacred symbol of their union. The cake was often crumbled over the bride’s head to symbolize fertility and good fortune. Guests would scramble to snatch pieces of the broken cake in hopes of getting a little bit of that good fortune for themselves.
This tradition persisted until, by the Middle Ages in Europe, it got a bit out of hand! The superstition reached a point where guests would make a mad scramble, tearing pieces of the bride’s dress or flowers to steal a little bit of her good luck. The tradition of the bride throwing her bouquet to the crowd? Yeah, that was to distract guests so they’d leave her dress alone!
Both of those traditions, the tossing of the bouquet and the “breaking” of the cake, have survived, although most wedding attendees have no idea where the traditions came from. Still, the intent is basically the same; we all want to share in the joy and good fortune of the happy couple.
Over the centuries, different cultures around the world have taken the symbols of shared marital fortune and gone in some fun directions. For example…
Peru
In Peru, charms are baked into the wedding cake with ribbons hanging out. The bride’s single friends each pull a ribbon, and whoever gets the one attached to a ring is destined to be the next one lucky in love.
Mexico
In Mexico, brides tie long ribbons to their bouquet. Each single woman holds one ribbon as they dance in a circle around the bride. The ribbons are cut one by one until the only ribbon left is the one in the hands of the lucky lady who will be next to marry.
Medieval England
The concept of a “wedding cake” in medieval England was a far cry from what we see today. Back then, guests would bring small cakes and stack them into a towering pile. If the newlyweds could kiss over the pile without knocking it down, they would enjoy a lifetime of prosperity. Over time, bakers started “gluing” these piles together with icing, and the idea of a single wedding cake started to take shape.
The Bride’s Pie
In the 1600s and 1700s, wedding guests were treated to a “bride’s pie”—sometimes savory, sometimes sweet, and often containing a hidden ring. Whoever found the ring in their slice was said to be next to marry—if not the next to break a tooth.
The United States
Like many traditions in the US, the wedding cake was originally borrowed from European customs and brought here by early settlers. These were often fruit cakes, which lasted a long time (refrigeration was not viable) and could easily be shared with large numbers of guests. For a long time, American wedding cake trends mirrored what was going on in Europe, especially Britain.
White Icing
The quintessential big, white wedding cake was an echo of the images Americans were seeing of wedding cakes in Europe. When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840, her cake was multi-layered, grand, and covered in pure white icing. Because refined white sugar was such an expensive luxury back then, the white icing (known as “royal icing”) symbolized wealth and extravagance, although today we say that a white wedding cake represents purity.
Modern American Wedding Cake Trends
1960s: Traditional Elegance
If someone asked you to draw a wedding cake off the top of your head, you’d probably draw something straight out of the 1960s. Tall. Multi-tiered. Pure white. You might even add pillars and elaborate decorative frosting, topped with a little plastic bride and groom or some other ornamentation. That image of the classic wedding cake is burned into all our minds.
Pretty? Sure. Elegant? Absolutely. Tasty? Not so much.
To get that glossy, perfectly smooth look, traditional wedding cakes are covered in fondant, marzipan, or royal frosting. Marzipan is very rich and heavy, and while it’s a popular taste in parts of Europe, most Americans are not fans of the strong almond flavor. Eating fondant is a lot like eating candy-flavored plastic—many guests just peel it off and throw it away. Royal icing is extremely sweet and crunchy, like hard candy. (It’s the “glue” we use on gingerbread houses.) While all three of these coverings look stunning and are great for cake decorators, they never taste as good as American buttercream frosting.
While the elegant, sophisticated look of pre-1960s wedding cakes is making a comeback, the taste is not. Today, newlyweds want the best of both form and flavor. They’re finding ways to have their perfect-looking cake and enjoy eating it too.
1970s: Ch-ch-ch-changes!
The ‘70s were when the wedding cake scene really started to change. Sure, there were still a lot of all-white cakes with floating tiers and royal icing, heavily decorated with intricate scrolls and rosettes. But that traditional look was morphing into something more simple, personal, and unique. The tiers and pillars and gobs of frosting started to disappear, and in their place came more rustic-looking cakes with hand-piped buttercream and fresh flowers.
Vanilla or almond cakes still dominated the scene, but we also started to see carrot cakes, spice cakes, and chocolate (usually in a groom’s cake). Hand-piped buttercream flowers were all the rage!
Colors were changing too. White cakes started to give way to burnt orange, mustard yellow, avocado green, and all the funky colors that made the ‘70s so far out.
1980s: A Decade of Decadence
Then came the ‘80s, and the pendulum swung back toward bigger, bigger, bigger! Influenced by TV images of celebrity weddings (like Princess Di’s wedding in 1981), people leaned into tall, dramatic cakes with fountains, staircases, and over-the-top design elements.
Cake decorators started going all-out with their icing. It was a point of pride to cover a cake in delicate lace piping, scrollwork, cornelli lace, and shell borders. Wedding cakes really were sculptures made of sugar. Sugar flowers started to appear, although they didn’t look nearly as amazing as they do today.
Photo credits Ruckman Photo
The purpose of a wedding cake in the ‘80s seemed to be to wow guests with a stunning visual centerpiece. That’s probably why fondant became more common again; you can’t do a lot of that ornate decorative work with buttercream.
Photo credits Bob Boyd
1990s: Sophistication, Personalization, and Flavor
The Martha Stewart Wedding magazine, launched in 1994, had a huge impact on wedding cake trends in America. While some earlier trends persisted (pillared tiers, lacework piping, fountains, and staircases), the ‘90s saw a movement towards elegance, minimalism, personalization, and—best of all—flavor!
A proliferation of boutique bakeries allowed more and more couples to choose custom designs over mass-produced supermarket-style cakes. Red velvet, tiramisu, and other unusual flavors made the inside of wedding cakes as exciting as the outside. Some cakes even featured different flavors in different tiers. Visually, the cakes tended to look sleeker and more streamlined, sometimes featuring gold or silver dragée (those little metallic-looking candy balls). Real and edible flowers were a favorite.
Photo Credits Keith Westerberg
2000s: Customization and Expression
To understand the wedding cake trends of the 2000s, remember that this was when cake shows like Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss were big.
Watching celebrity bakers design one-of-a-kind cakes on TV inspired a lot of 2000s couples to get creative and personal. Instead of just being impressive, wedding cakes began to be expressive, either telling a story about the couple or reflecting some of their individual passions or traits.
Photo credits Bratt Photo and Film and Pepper Nix
Some of these cakes showcased romantic details of the couple’s courtship or unique values they shared. Others were genuinely stunning creations that would have looked at home in an art gallery.
One not-so-great result of this trend was a return of fondant to create all those intricate figurines and adornments. On the other hand, the world of cake flavors broke wide open, with raspberry, pistachio, Nutella, lemon, and many more. Basically, if it came as an ice cream flavor, it showed up in a cake.
Other popular baking shows like Cupcake Wars, which started toward the end of the decade and stretching into the 2010s, led newlyweds to consider alternative wedding “cakes.” We started to see traditional cakes replaced by artful displays of cupcakes, donuts, waffles, pancakes, macarons, pies, cheesecakes, cake pops, and other desserts.
Photo credits Anna Boynton
2010s: Naked Cakes & Pinterest Perfection
American wedding cake trends in the 2010s were dominated by two (often contradictory) factors: (1) an ethic of simplicity and authenticity, and (2) the influence of social media.
Young couples in the 2010s tended to want their cake to be environmentally friendly and socially responsible as well as taste great. Smaller cakes with organic, locally sourced ingredients were in demand. Instead of a gaudy exterior hiding a sub-par inside, cakes from the 2010s emphasized an attractive but modest exterior while cramming what was inside with amazing flavors. Large, elaborately iced cakes were replaced by small, simple “naked” cakes with little or no outer frosting at all. The mantra was “Keep it simple. Keep it real.”
Photo credits Angela Howard
At the same time, 2010s couples wanted their cakes to be photo-worthy. Pinterest and Instagram had become two of the top social network services in the world, and they heavily influenced wedding cake trends. Instead of comparing their own wedding cake to their mother’s or older sister’s, brides-to-be started comparing their cake to a million strangers’ cakes they saw online—and what they saw was mind-blowingly diverse and creative!
Photo credits Cassandra Farley, Hail Photo Co, and Heather Nann
It’s no surprise that wedding cake trends in the 2010s were an explosion of creativity and individual expression. From gorgeous themed cakes and masterpieces that belonged in a museum to eye-catching “cakes” that weren’t cakes at all, 2010 couples took up the challenge to “do it for the gram.”
Photo credits Heather Nann, Katie Bertagnolli, Britt Chudleigh
Even when couples opted for a more traditional tiered cake, they generally added some highly stylized, personal touches. Fresh flowers and greenery, gold leaf, geometric designs, or hand-painted details turned ordinary cakes into art pieces. Couples embraced their own unique styles with whimsical designs, creative flourishes, and unusual flavors.
Photo credits Cassandra Farley
The Pandemic Years: Pivot to Small and Personal
The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on wedding cake trends. Many couples decided to delay their weddings until they could gather with family and friends again. Those who went ahead with their connubial plans had to find ways to work around restrictions. The result was fewer guests, smaller venues, and more intimate ceremonies.
Photo credits Makenzie Jamias and Justin Hackworth
One earlier trend that translated well to pandemic-era weddings was replacing a single, large cake with individual dessert servings. Cupcake towers and the like provided greater variety and convenience while also maintaining social distancing.
COVID restrictions definitely put a damper on a lot of celebrations, but the pivot to smaller, simpler celebrations also had its upsides. With only a handful of their closest family and friends involved, couples were free to hold their celebrations in unconventional locations that had personal meaning to them, even if it was a lake in the middle of the Uinta Mountains.
Photo credits Alyssia B
Post Pandemic: Cautiously Optimistic
In the years immediately following the lockdowns, people were anxious to get back out there and party, but not necessarily with wedding cakes.
We saw a continuation of the trend of keeping wedding cakes small or replacing them altogether with dessert tables. Wedding cakes were generally clean, classy, and beautiful, but not at all ostentatious.
Many of the trends of the past continued such as art-inspired designs and hybrid dessert tables. The popularity of sustainable, ethically sourced, local, fresh ingredients continued to grow. Real and sugar flowers became ubiquitous and virtually indistinguishable!
Photo credits Gabriella Santos, Heather Nann, Shannon Elizabeth, and Heather Nann
What’s Next?
Next week, we’ll talk to local wedding cake experts and get their take on the current State of the Cake. We’ll also find out their forecast on what the coming year holds for wedding cake trends.
To discuss your own cake with Utah’s top high end caterer, give us a call us at 801-225-6575.
