A Wedding Florist's Experience with... Wedding Cakes?

In eighteen years as a professional wedding florist, I never got over what I call wedding cake anxiety. Virtual tours of wedding venues or prior experience with them can give a wedding florist a high degree of confidence. The one place where this foreknowledge falls apart is the wedding cake. The bride can provide the wedding florist with photographs and the baker can describe it in great detail but the wedding cake may still hold surprises.

I'll never forget my first cake incident as a wedding florist. The flowers were arranged in foam with notes describing which went on which layer. I had also drawn a picture showing how the ivy should drape. I thought this would be a perfect job for my assistant.

I was hanging flowers on a balcony when my assistant rushed up in tears. The front of her apron bore a small smear of white frosting. She'd accidentally touched the wedding cake with her bosom while reaching up to place the cake topper!

I scraped off the surface of the damaged frosting with a butter knife borrowed from the kitchen. Then, we carefully lifted the cake and rotated it so I could change the flower placement, allowing the ivy to cascade and cover the disturbed area of frosting.

As a wedding florist, the timing of the cake delivery always makes me anxious. I've sometimes had to put fresh flowers on a cake that arrived after the reception had already started. I once even waited for a cake that never showed up!

Sometimes it isn't the timing; it's the cake itself that causes problems. As a wedding florist, I've encountered cakes literally twice the size of the dimensions I'd been given. I've also seen cakes without spaces between layers when flowers to go in such spaces had been ordered and vice versa. I even ran into one wedding cake with frosting like whipped cream into which fresh rose petals sank to their doom. A few extra rose petals saved the day that time.

If you are a wedding florist and your customer wants flowers on her cake be sure to get photos and measurements for the layers including distance between layers and the thickness of the pillars used. Call and confirm this information a few days before the wedding. Be sure to bring along a few extra flowers in case of emergency. If you are planning a wedding and want fresh flowers on the cake be sure to give detailed information to your wedding florist.