Incredible Ideas To Design The Ideal Wedding Cake

Wedding cakes are a centrepiece of your marriage celebrations. A cake can reflect the personalities and style sense of the happy couple, whilst providing a slice of shared joy for your guests!

For some, exploring wedding cake ideas can be as much an adventure as finding the perfect dress or venue.

There are tonnes of ideas for wedding cakes out there nowadays. Luckily for you, we’re here to round up the very best ideas, plus different shapes, colours and finishes to give you the impressive wedding cake you deserve.  

Wedding Cake Design Principles

Selecting the right wedding cake involves aligning your design choices with the feel and theme of your wedding celebrations. 

From sophisticated tier structure to the nuances of the colour palette, the key to a successful wedding cake lies in its design principles. This is always our first step and we make sure to work extra closely with our brides and grooms to get your wedding cake spot on. 

Understanding Tiers and Structure

The foundation of any wedding cake is its structure. Wedding cakes are usually made up of multiple stacked tiers of either two, three or four. 

It’s possible to have ‘tall’ three tier cakes and those with a flatter profile too. This all comes down to individual preference. 

Modern wedding cakes can buck the trend completely and go for a simple, single tier cake. To make these stand out, cake designers often put forward ideas with different shapes and attractive finishes. 

Selecting a Colour Palette

Colour is a significant element of cake design and should reflect the wedding’s theme and the couple’s personality. 

Neutral and pastel tones, such as ivory white and pale pink, often lend a minimalist or rustic feel to the cake, reinforcing the ethos of natural elegance with a slight twist on tradition. 

In contrast, bold colours and rich hues, such as gold, purple, red and dark pinks are chosen to convey luxury and abundance. This can be a better fit for a more modern wedding theme. 

If you want to go really modern, then big and bright colours should be your go to. Expressive colours like yellows, greens and oranges, add a sense of fun and ‘this is us’ to your special day. 

Incorporating Design Elements

Incorporating design elements such as textures, patterns and finishes is essential for a cake that resonates with the couple’s taste. 

A primary way to do this is through intricate pipework, something the Palms Bakery specialises in. This can really set a cake apart from your more traditional styles and certainly gives the guests that ‘wow’ factor.

Sometimes it’s possible to include a little bit of subtle luxury, such as carefully placed glacier cherries and edible flowers. These are elegant additions that aren’t too in your face. 

The next step is to go extra bold. We love designing true showstoppers complete with floral, psychedelic and shaggy finishes to really turn some heads. Don’t worry though, these big, bold designs aren’t just for show - they taste amazing too. 

For those seeking simplicity, minimalist cake designs favour clean lines and limited decorations. These can look just as effective and could well be the perfect design for you.

Seasonal Wedding Cake Inspirations

When planning a seasonal wedding, you can incorporate timely flavours, themes and colours to really match the mood. 

Spring and summer marriages often feature wedding cakes with light and fresh flavours. Immediately springing to mind here is lemon and poppyseed, vanilla and raspberry, and even blood orange chocolate. Beautiful. 

Autumn and winter wedding cakes embrace deeper, richer flavours and colours falling leaves and cosy evenings. A perfect wedding cake for this time of year might make the most of chocolate flavours alongside sticky toffee and caramel.  

You can read on our wedding cake flavours blog.

Traditional and Contemporary Styles

Traditional wedding cakes will always be popular with couples - people love tradition after all! A traditional cake usually features multiple tiers with intricate icing and delicate piping. 

A key to a traditional wedding cake design is the colour. Whites and ivory colours are used for decoration to give the cake a pure look. If you’re going really traditional, you’d cut through the white and into a lovely fruit cake! 

Modern and Unique Wedding Cakes

Modern and unique wedding cakes is something Palms Bakery specialises in. 

We love adding uniqueness and personal expression to your designs. This can be done in a number of ways. For some it’s the use of complementary colours of different shades, whereas others prefer bold and contrasting colours. 

A modern wedding cake can contain multiple tiers too, decorated in beautiful buttercream piping to (almost) steel the show.

The heart shaped design is becoming a popular one tier wedding cake for smaller weddings. 

Discover some of our very own wedding cake designs here. If you’re not sure on flavours, you can try a few different ones to help make your mind up with our wedding cake sample box.