Cutting the wedding cake is one of the important parts of your wedding day, but when is the right time during the celebrations to cut it? Cutting the cake symbolises the start of your life as a married couple. Is your wedding more traditional or do you go more modern? Let’s go through the options!
Traditional Time To Cut A Wedding Cake
Traditionally, cutting the cake is the last formal moment of the day, at the end of the wedding reception. This is usually after speeches and dinner. The wedding cake is usually made up of multiple tiers, sometimes up to 5. The groom with his right hand over his bride takes a silver-plated cake knife and cuts a small piece from the bottom tier. With this first cake slice, the bride and groom feed each other. Then if they wish, serve a piece of their new in-laws. When the cake has been cut it is taken away to be cut up for all the guests to share. It is important to make sure you save some to send to guests that couldn’t make it. Due to this tradition, many older guests may take the cutting of the wedding cake as the sign they are then able to head home.
Sticking To Wedding Cake Cutting Tradition?
Another tradition is to keep the top and middle tiers of the wedding cake and freeze them to use later. The top tier is saved for the christening of the first child and the middle tier is saved for the first anniversary. As you can imagine, due to this, traditional wedding cakes can be very big!
Modern Wedding Cake Cutting Choices
In more modern times, not everyone goes for a multiple tier cake because of the tradition but because they have larger wedding parties. Another reason is that they look amazing! It isn’t as common now to expect a couple to have a child straight after marriage meaning the cake wouldn’t last. There are many different wedding cake styles to match each unique couple. Some might even opt for a wedding cake made of cheese! What you can do instead is save any wedding toppers you may use to then add to your children’s cake if you have them.
Modern Wedding Cake Cutting Times
It can be rather more practical to break the traditional when cutting your wedding cake. If you do this before dinner, it means the cake can actually be cut up and used as your dessert. A great way to make sure everyone gets a piece of cake and to combine prices with no extra dessert. You could also go for a smaller tiered cake and then add some cupcakes with the same flavour to give your guests. This way you can keep your cake as a centrepiece all day.
Benefits to cutting your wedding cake earlier
There are benefits to cutting your cake earlier than the traditional last thing of the day. By doing it slightly earlier you can get some amazing pictures, even with your guests. You could also get some great pictures alongside your beautifully set up wedding venue. Another benefit of cutting the cake earlier means as soon as your guests have finished dinner they can move straight to the dance floor!
Overall, don’t stress about when to cut your wedding cake. Plan for it to fit into your day. Sometimes with the most organised planning, a wedding can run late, because you are having too much fun enjoying every moment of the day! You can either go traditionally at the end of the reception or you could go more modern and do it before. Either way, make sure you enjoy designing and tasting your cake before the big day. Enquire with Marie Makes now.
Hi, I’m Marie and I love to make cakes! I started baking professionally after I was made redundant during lockdown and decided it was time to do what I love for a living. I’ve got many years of experience making cakes for family and friends and can’t wait to make them for you too! I also want to share tips and tricks from all I’ve learned over the years, so I can help you on your baking journey too.
No responses yet