The wedding cake you present and then eat at your wedding reception is the ultimate centerpiece. A well chosen wedding cake design can work as an important cornerstone in the theme, scheme or aesthetic you are trying to convey in your reception space. In modern cake design and decoration there are so many new wedding cake incarnations that every bride can easily come up with the perfect cake for her perfect wedding day.

Traditional Tiered Cake

The traditional wedding cake consists of round or square tiers of cakes stacked on top of one another with the smallest tier at the top and largest at the bottom. Most modern interpretations of the wedding cake play directly on this structural theme and even some of the most decoratively avant-garde maintain a traditional tiered shape.

The most obvious benefit of choosing a traditional tiered shape for your wedding cake is that most bakers, even at-home bakers with no commercial experience, can manage to bake, cut, fill and stack a simple three to five tiered design. Also, these are usually the most affordable, readily available and easily customizable wedding cakes that can be found outside of specialty wedding and event bakeries.

There are several decorating tricks and techniques that savvy brides can employ to elevate the look of a traditional tiered wedding cake. One trick is to incorporate non-edible, freshly cut real flowers around the base of the tiers. This can tie in your chosen wedding flower and add a cheery burst of color and texture on a simple cake. If the baker you are using is skilled in working with more complex decorative elements, you can request to have those flowers sculpted from sugar or gum paste. Any three dimensional, theme-specific items you add to a cake should be proportionate to the size of the tiers it is complementing and now overpower the cake.

• Most bakers can make a simple 3-5 tiered cake
• Three dimensional elements should be proportionate
• Affordable and widely available
• Flowers add color, texture and theme relevance

Modern Tiered Cake

A slight departure from the traditional tiered wedding cake, modern tiered wedding cakes can be found in several architectural, whimsical and interesting designs. Two of the most popular modern tiered wedding cakes are the separated tier and topsy-turvy cake designs.

The separated tier wedding cake is a fast growing trend perfectly suited to a bride and groom who cannot see eye to eye on a cake or filling flavor. In this wedding cake presentation several different tiers are decorated in a series of complementary, but not identical, styles and placed on separate matching cake stands around the cake table display. This choice of wedding cake design is perfect for wedding themes ranging from whimsical fairytale balls to a rustic and rural backyard bash. By separating each tier onto its own separate stand customization possibilities sky-rocket.

Topsy-turvy cakes are the next frontier of wedding cake designs. Similar in general layout to a traditional tiered cake, a topsy-turvy cake seems to defy gravity by switching between large and small layers, having tiers laid at what used to be impossible angles and incorporating nontraditional shapes into some of the tiers themselves. This kind of wedding cake is not for the inexperienced baker and, due to the higher level of skill involved in the structure, can be markedly more expensive than their traditional counterparts.

• Separate tiers add variety
• Accommodate different tastes with totally separate cake tiers
• Extreme angles and shapes are great in modern wedding cakes
• Entrust topsy-turvy designs with the more experienced bakers and pastry chefs

Whether traditional and understated or modern and over the top, tiered wedding cakes have been the most popular basis of wedding cake design for decades. Customizable, adaptable and timelessly fashionable, the tiered wedding cake is never a misstep in wedding planning style.