How to Serve the Cake

After slicing your cake you are now ready to serve the cake. Wedding Traditions dictates that it is bad luck for a guest to leave the reception without tasting your delicious wedding cake. To keep with the tradition of good fortune and guarantee that everyone gets a taste of your cake, follow these few simple guidelines for wedding cake service.

For a sit-down lunch or dinner, the bride and groom and the bridal party are served first. The guests who are seated closest to the bridal table are then served, followed by the remaining tables, working toward the outer edge of the room.

You can serve the wedding cake on it’s own but that would be fairly plain and that’s OK, but to make it look more appealing embellish the plates. You could pipe a chocolate design or the initials of the bride and groom on to the plate the day before (chill the plates so that the chocolate hardens). You could dust the plates with cocoa or powdered sugar or ground nuts. Or serve the cake with cream or ice-cream or a drizzle of raspberry or strawberry coulis. Another easy idea is to moisten the wedding cake plates rim with lemon juice and roll them in colored sugar. How about matching the color with the bridesmaids dresses or the main wedding color.

If your cake is covered with edible decorations, is to be severed with a sauce or ice cream, make sure that you discuss this with the caterer or family. What you should discuss is how many flowers are to be placed on each slice of cake. How large and how many scoops of ice cream? To determine this do a dry run, use a stand-in cake and decorations work out all the details in advance.

For a buffet reception, you have several options on how the cake can be served. In most cases the slices of cake will be set out on a large buffet table and the guests are invited to help themselves after the bride and groom and the bridal table have sat down and eaten their cake. Another option is to serve the cake as you would at a sit down meal as described above.

Leave How to Serve the Cake go to Wedding Cake Book >>