It makes a real focal point for your evening reception and can be served with crackers or warm baguettes.So, if you thought choosing your wedding cake was going to be one of your easiest decisions, think again! How to go about it?

First choose your style

Traditional white tiered wedding cakes can be personalised with sugar flowers reflecting your bridal bouquet, delicately constructed butterflies or even beads and feathers. Novelty cakes comes in all shapes and sizes from tiers of suitcases or parcels to cakes in the shape of the Eiffel Tower or a grand piano. Chocolate cakes are almost as versatile. Choose a smooth, shiny chocolate icing, or mouth-watering chocolate fudge or exquisite chocolate curls. And, of course, they can be milk, dark or even white chocolate. Fairy cakes can be made in paper cups decorated with hearts and topped with white icing scattered with matching hearts or decorated with individually made sugar flowers. Imagine it, it’s yours!

Find your cake maker

Visit several cake makers, look at photographs of cakes they have made, take time to discuss your ideas and your budget and see what they come up with. Do check that they use the best ingredients because while your cake must look spectacular, the proof of this pudding is certainly in the eating.

Finalise your order

Ideally your cake should be ordered at least three months before the wedding. The most important thing to remember is that it will have to be big enough to give everyone a slice at the reception and to send slices to absent friends. Traditionally the top tier of a wedding cake was kept for the christening of the first child – so if you want to follow that tradition, you’ll have to opt for a cake that will last that long.

And finally…

Your cake maker’s price may include delivery and setting up the cake at the reception venue as well as the use of a cakestand and knife – but it may not. Check. You may even be able to save some money by collecting the finished cake yourself and your reception venue may provide a cakestand and knife.