Wedding Tart Decoration

Celebrity weddings that are featured in the bridal magazines include photos of cakes that go up as high as $25 per slice. (Can you imagine having a wedding with 200 guests and spending $5000 just on the cake? That's twice as much as I spent on my ENTIRE wedding six years ago!) If you love sweets like I do and also desire something unique to not only "wow" your guests' appetites but that will be a showpiece in the wedding pictures, consider these trends for 2010 that you can adapt to fit your budget:
1) If you have an heirloom china set or an antique gown from your grandmother, have the cake designer create a mini-cake with the elaborate lace or etched details created out of fondant.. Place the mini-cake on an antique cake stand to elevate it for the pictures and then have the bakery prepare a large sheet cake with a simple filling and frosting that is cut up and served in the kitchen. (You can even have Costco make the large sheet cakes, or a few of them, depending on the number of guests you'll be serving. They have delicious cakes and at bargain prices!)
2) Cupcakes are all the rage these days, so why not ask the Food Network junkie friend or family member to bake up several batches of cupcakes as your wedding gift? You can have a few dozen of the traditional favorites like chocolate with white frosting and red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and then go crazy with the cupcakes that will be displayed on a tiered-tray for the presentation at the cake table.
3) Check out a local culinary school and hire the students training in the dessert field to create your cake in exchange for a donate to the school or perhaps for a nominal fee you pay to the students directly.
4) If you are a pie lover why not order several pies in various flavors from a place like Marie Callender's? A few times a year they offer pies for $6 each, so you could serve everyone of your guests for as little as.75 per slice!
5) Consider specialty pastries as your wedding dessert. The restaurant where we had our wedding/reception was known for their Grand Marnier Tart, so the chef created two giant hearts coming together that served our 50 guests. He used all fresh seasonal berries to garnish the giant tart, baked it in a chocolate pastry crust, and we served it with an inexpensive champagne. I think they charged us $50 for the dessert and it was the hit of the reception.
My mouth is now watering for something sweet! Bon appetit and happy cake/pie/tart tasting for your upcoming wedding!
Wedding cakes aren't all they used to be. They're more. To find a truly unique wedding cake, it is necessary to look for unique shades in shape, flavor, and decorations. Here are tips and ideas for making your wedding cake unique.
Shape
Round or square: round and square cakes are the most traditional. They can be made unique by finding different ways to showcase them or put them together. Try a square gift cake with each layer wrapped in fondant icing to look like a present.
Hexagonal cakes are slightly more unique. They have several sharp edges and can be piled high for a unique looking cake.
A petal cake has scalloped edges, but doesn't have to look like a flower. Use stripes and contrasting colors to use this shape to its highest advantage.
A French design for a wedding cake is a tier of marzipan- or cream-filled pastry piled high to look like a tree or tower. While popular around the world, it isn't as well-known in the United States and would be unique at a wedding there.
A topsy-turvy cake has alternating, slanted layers. It looks like a cake Alice might have found in Wonderland. Designs like this one stand out from the crowd.
A great way to make a unique wedding cake is to make one from a freeform design. Have a cake shaped like an apple, a face, a city, or a garden. These kinds of cakes are becoming more popular as shows like Ace of Cakes bring them into the limelight.