Wonderful Wedding Cake

As with many social gatherings, food has become a crucial part of wedding traditions. Food is closely associated with fellowship in most cultures so it is no surprise that the wonderful wedding cake is at the heart of the wedding reception to celebrate the formation of a new, loving relationship between a husband and a wife. This is why it is not uncommon for the catering and the wedding cake to combine to take up nearly half of the wedding budget. And, the ceremony of cutting the wedding cake has become just as anticipated as the first wedded kiss.

Somehow, over time, traditions always seem to turn into rules of etiquette. The cutting of the wedding cake is no different. The tradition, turned rules, of cutting cake is that the cake must have its first cut made by the groom and bride during the wedding reception meal. Once this etiquette formality has jointly taken place as dozens of pictures are taken, someone else can cut up the rest of the cake so everyone can start receiving some wedding cake for dessert.

Choosing your cake is no simple task. While historically wedding cakes had to be white with a vanilla frosting to symbolize the innocence and purity with which the groom and bride entered into this marriage, it is becoming more common for the couple just to choose their own cake rather than to get too heavily into symbolizing their state at the moment of union. As a result, there are so many wedding cake options available to complicate the task of choosing one. Of course, the task is really easy in the unlikely event that the groom and bride both share a favorite kind of cake.

Every kind of cake you've ever seen can probably be made into a wedding cake -- from chocolate cake to pound cake to fruit cake to marble cake. There are even more types of frosting available than there are types of cake. It is becoming more popular to make each layer of the cake a different flavor to suit the tastes of nearly everyone present.

The decorations on a wedding cake can be the traditional writing in icing and a groom-bride wedding topper. Or, you can go with a diverse assortment of decorations including fruit toppings and cookie-cutter made decorations.

The reason the groom and bride cut the wedding cake together is often interpreted as them performing first work together. But it has also traditionally symbolized their fertility. The sharing of the first slice of cake is usually thought to symbolize their dedication to helping and sharing the tasks, joys, and burdens of life together from this point forward. But regardless of the cake's symbolism in various cultures, in nearly all cultures the sharing of food is a symbol of companionship.

The history of wedding cakes may surprise you. In fact, early wedding cakes were bread cakes. The breaking of this bread was a symbol for the union formed between two people, and also the union formed between their families. The bread was often broken over the head of the bride as a symbol that she was breaking away from the past life she had known and into a new life as a wife. Over time, a ceremony of breaking bread was accompanied by a showering of the couple's head. This was eventually changed from a symbol of a life change to a superstition about good fortune in marriage. Over time many different countries and cultures developed their own various practices and meanings around this same basic wedding cakes theme.

The tradition of American wedding cakes involves having the married couple cut the cake together as a couple in front of all of their friends and family. Generally, the photography of the event takes precedence over the audience. As the couple continue, they are to each feed each other the cake, rather than feeding themselves. Superstitious people have added to the tradition that when a couple eats the first of their own wedding cake they will hold together in a happily wedded bond. In this way wedding cakes have come to be recognized as almost a part of the wedding ceremony itself, where after the first kiss the couple continues to share in each other's life and to serve each other in life.

In the 17th century, wedding cakes were still made of bread. They were more like spicy bagels with raisins and nuts cooked into them. The superstitious actually believed that putting pieces of wedding cakes under their pillows would help them get a bride. In fact, they believed that sleeping with these wedding cakes, referred to at the time as bride cakes, would bring them dreams of who their future spouses would be. Since this time many similar variations of this tradition of wedding cakes have continued on in isolated areas.

A more modern variation of this tradition of wedding cakes is that the first unrelated person of the opposite sex that you see the day after sleeping on the cake will be your spouse some day. While only a few people actually believe this, many people still enjoy doing it to see what will happen. If nothing else, this old tradition of wedding cakes makes life more interesting.