How to Decorate a Wedding Cake Without Spending Too Much Money

Wedding cakes are becoming more and more popular, getting more attention, and are getting more expensive. Many cakes run into $10 a slice! With new advents like fondant and gum paste and sugar art flowers and decorations, your standard wedding cake seems dull in comparison. Any of these decorative elements, the gum paste flowers, the intensive frosting decorations, and the fondant are all very expensive, labor intensive tasks, which make your cake much more expensive. However, as pretty as they are, most people do not get a good look at your wedding cake, so perhaps you might want to allocate the $700 or so differential between a standard wedding package wedding cake and a specialty a fondant covered cake with sugar or gum paste flowers , and put that $700 towards something else at your wedding. Of course, you would still like a tasty, pretty cake. Why not have a good tasting cake with simple decorations and add something to your cake? A simply frosted cake can be obtained from even a grocery store bakery. Keep the frosting detailing simple and monotone if you are going to be adding extra details. Thin, swirly lines are a relatively inexpensive frosting design that you can add garnishes to. Here are some example ideas.

As beautiful as gum paste flowers are, the more realistic they become, the more they cost to just look like real flowers. So why not use real flowers instead which are actually cheaper than gum paste? As long as a flower is edible and has not been exposed to pesticides, and the stamens (the dusty pollen spikes) have been removed, flowers like fresh roses are much cheaper to use than having gum paste commissioned. Your florist can make a caketop arrangement and some flowers that are wrapped in wire and green tape or in a small water tube that can be inserted directly into the cake. If you are crafty, you may be able to do this yourself or have a friend do so. Usually a bakery will place your cake topper flowers on the cake for no charge.

Edible pearls can be purchased in large batches placed onto frosting. They usually come in white, ivory, pale pink and yellow. They look very nice against pale pastel frostings, and the pink pearls look great against a chocolate cake. The pale pink and chocolate cake would match the chocolate brown and pale pink theme colors seen in wedding elements like wedding invitations and bridesmaids' dresses that are popular this season. Also a tiffany blue tinted pearl or decoration on a chocolate cake has a more expensive look to it even with simple details. A spun candy ribbon in light blue would make a pretty bow on a chocolate frosting cake. They are generally available at bakery supplies or by doing a search on Amazon or even Ebay.

Rose petals that are from roses without pesticides (perhaps from your own garden) can be strewn on a cake, or sugared and strewn on a cake. Pansies are also edible, as are daylilies. Mint leaves are also edible and have a pretty edge. There are several edible flowers, just make sure they have not been exposed to pesticides.

Monogrammed cakes are popular with your initials made out of crystals or metals placed atop a cake. If these are done with crystals or rhinestones then a plain cake does not look boring. It is also a popular trend to have "bling" cakes where jewels are placed on the cake. A hatpin or stick pin, if large enough and would not have pieces of it fall off, could work as a substitute for the more expensive professional bakery cake "bling" or perhaps even a tiara on top of the cake, anchored into the cake with the hair combs. Lenox and other well known china companies also make caketoppers, consider registering for one if you want to use such a caketopper that will also make a nice wedding momento, but have a backup plan if no one gives you the caketopper as a shower gift.

Any of these elements will look also look more expensive against a brighter color frosting, but think luminance, not dark when choosing a non-white or non-pastel frosting; it will always seem a bit darker once it is on an entire cake. As a guide, chose a pastel color and then think of what would be the jewel tone hue of that shade, such as a medium teal (not quote turquoise) or a lilac that is not quote amethyst. If you go darker, you will likely want a frosting with a bit more sheen to it than a whip cream frosting, consider butter cream, maybe even ask for some edible shiny sugar to be in the frosting mix to give it some depth of color and not look to flat. The flat dull appearance of the frosting is part of what makes plain cakes look cheap.

In conclusion, weddings are filled with expensive extras and wedding cakes have become no exception. Cakes with expensive decorations are beautiful, but rarely can the details be seen well enough to be enjoyed by the average guest. From more than 10 feet away, fondant just looks like frosting and gumpaste flowers just look like real flowers. Once the cake is cut, fondant is often too hard to be edible or tasty, which takes away the nice layer of frosting and makes for a drier cake. What most guests will see is the cake on their plates, so try to focus on getting the best tasting cake you can and spend less on the actual decor of the cake itself.