Here, you’ll find 17 stunning wedding cake ideas for a unique and memorable celebration. If you’re looking for inspiration to place an order with your local baker, or you want to recreate one of these cakes yourself thanks to the guidance I provide, you’re in the perfect place.
How to find a wedding cake idea suited to your cake-decorating level?
I’ve come up with a system. The cake ideas are presented to you according to their level of difficulty. There are three categories :
What Are Beginner Cake Ideas?
These are easy cake ideas. If you’ve never decorated a cake before (or only did it once or twice), these are the cakes that you should pay attention to.
- What you’ll find: Beautiful cake ideas that only require basic cake decorating techniques. This is a great place to start your journey.
What Are Intermediate Cake Ideas?
Low Intermediate Baker: If you are confident that you’ve mastered the cake decorating basics, such as how to smooth a cake, but feel like you still have a lot of techniques to learn apart from this foundation, this category is perfect for you.
- What you’ll find: Cake ideas that require both basic decorating skills and one or two techniques that are a little bit more advanced. This is a great place to grow your cake-decorating skills.
High Intermediate Baker: If you’ve mastered both basic techniques and several more advanced cake decorating techniques, these cake ideas are made for you.
- What you’ll find: Stunning cake ideas that can be fairly challenging, but are a great place to get even better than you already are.
What Are Advanced Cake Ideas?
If you consider yourself an experienced cake decorator and have mastered most of the decorating techniques, including the use of fondant, then this is the perfect place for you.
- What you’ll find: Showstopping and challenging cake ideas, perfect to sharpen and maintain your skills.
The Grading System
Finally, I’ve also assigned a grade of difficulty to each cake inspiration: 1/5 being the easiest design and 5/5 being the hardest. The goal is to make the ranking the most accurate possible. You will find this to be particularly helpful if you happen to fall in the Beginner or the Intermediate Cake Ideas categories.
Growth Tip : This list is great a place to set goals about your cake decorating skills. Pin this post and come back later to tell us how far you’ve come in your cake decorating journey !
How to follow the instructions of the designs.
For the cake designs in the beginner category: I’ll provide written instructions on how to recreate the cake idea presented to you. Don’t hesitate to watch video tutorials about basic techniques such as how to smooth a cake.
For the designs in the intermediate category: I’ll provide some guidance on how to perform the more complicated techniques.
For the advanced category: you are an experienced baker, at this point, and you will find great opportunities to put this experience to use. To be completely honest, I cannot make myself several cake ideas from the advanced category, so trust your abilities and go for it.
Find the perfect wedding cake idea for your baking skills.
Growth Tip : If you aim to get better at cake decorating, you should choose a cake idea that feels sligthly above your current cake decorating level. Get out of your comfort zone !
Wedding Cake Ideas For Beginner Bakers
Here, you’ll find 4 simple one-tier wedding cake ideas perfect for beginner bakers.
Minimalist Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 1/5.
What you will need :
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Edible pearls.
- Wedding cake topper.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, you must crumb-coat the cake to avoid any crumbs in your final design. Apply a thin and even coat of frosting with your offset spatula all around your cake.
- Smooth it with your bench scraper, holding it at a 45-degree angle on the cake while spinning your turntable. Your bench scraper isn’t supposed to move, only turn the table.
- It doesn’t have to be perfect as it only is the first coat. Chill the cake 20 to 30 minutes in the fridge (until your frosting sets).
- Then, apply a thicker coat of frosting and repeat the smoothing operation. Fill in any gaps and smooth the cake again. Repeat this operation until the cake looks smooth enough for you. Here, you’ll find a video tutorial of the covering process, if needed.
- Next, chill your cake in the fridge for 30 minutes or until your buttercream cover sets.
- Use a knife warmed with water if you want sharp edges on your cake.
- Finally, add your edible pearls and your cake topper.
What you’ve learned :
As a cake decorator, the very first technique you have to master is how to frost a cake properly.
White And Golden Wedding Cakes
Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Edible golden leaves + a small paintbrush.
- Cake topper.
- Golden ribbon (optional).
How to recreate this cake?
- First, crumb coat, cover, chill, and cut the edges of your cake as explained in the previous cake design.
- Then, with your paintbrush, transfer gold leaf bits from the sheet of paper to the cake. Don’t use your fingers, it will stick to it.
- Finally, place your flowers, optional ribbon, and your cake decorations on your cake.
What you’ve learned :
Adding golden or silver accents is an easy way to elevate the look of a wedding cake.
Textured Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 1,5/5.
What you will need:
- Enough frosting to cover your cake.
- Artificial flowers or fresh flowers with their stems wrapped in floral tape.
- Wedding cake topper.
How to recreate this cake?
- First, crumb coat and cover your cake as explained in the previous cake design.
- Then, place your spatula at the top of the side of your cake and start spinning the turntable while slowly moving down to recreate texture.
- Finally, add your flowers and cake topper.
What you’ve learned :
Adding texture is another way to personalize the look of your cake design.
Wedding Cake Ideas Perfect For Intermediate Bakers
Here, you’ll find 6 wedding cake ideas perfect for intermediate bakers.
Vintage Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
If you want a small and trendy cake design, a vintage cake is definitely the way to go.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of look you’ll need to know how to pipe shell buttercream borders.
Heart Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 3/5 (Intermediate)
You can also add a little bit more character to your cake design by making a heart-shaped vintage cake.
A little guidance
To recreate this kind of heart-shaped wedding cake, you don’t necessarily need a heart cake tin. You can easily DIY these cakes using your usual cake pans.
Crystal Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 3,5/5 (High-Intermediate)
You could also add a velvety texture to your cake and edible crystals.
A little guidance
Use an edible velvet spray to recreate this kind of texture. Make sure to protect your kitchen as it can be messy. You can also learn how to make your own edible crystal cake toppers.
Semi-Naked Wedding Cake
Classical Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate).
If you like any of the two-tier cakes but want a single-tier cake for your wedding, you can easily adapt any of the cakes from the list.
A little guidance
When making tiered cakes, you have to pay extra attention to the structure of the cake. Therefore, you should always use a sturdy cake board for each tier. You should also support the bottom tier with dowel rods or bubble tea straws cut to the height of the cake. Finally, you should ensure each tier is leveled before stacking them.
Simple Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 4/5 (High-Intermediate)
You can also combine different wedding cake inspirations to create a unique cake design for your wedding.
A little guidance
To create this beautiful texture, you’ll need to learn how to properly use a comb.
Wedding Cake Ideas For Advanced Bakers
These 9 wedding cake designs will be perfectly suited to experienced cake decorators.
Draped Wedding Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
You can use fondant to create a beautiful draped effect.
Fondant Wedding Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
You could also mix buttercream-covered tiers with fondant-covered tiers.
Elegant Wedding Cake
Difficulty level: 5/5
But, if you don’t want to cover an entire cake tier with fondant as it doesn’t suit everyone’s taste, you can use it sparsely to add decorations to your wedding cake.
White Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
This cake is a perfect example of how you can adapt any of the one-tiered cake showed earlier as a bigger cake. On the contrary, you can also easily adapt any two-tiered or three-tier cake as single-tiered cake design.
Floral Wedding Cake.
Difficulty Level: 5/5
If you go for a floral cake choose either your favorite flowers or flowers that are in season.
Yellow Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Don’t hesitate to play with colors if you want an original cake design. You could choose your favorite color or inspire yourself from the colors of the season.
Blue Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Don’t shy away from dark and bold colors as they can create really unique and elegant wedding cakes.
Square Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Playing with shapes is another option. Your cake doesn’t have to be round, it could be square, hexagonal or even heart-shaped.
Carved Wedding Cake
Difficulty Level: 5/5
Finally, using a unique wedding cake stand can make your beautiful cake design even more showstopping.
If you’re looking for more cake ideas, check out my 16 unique engagement cake ideas, which can easily be adapted as wedding cakes.
Did you enjoy these wedding cake inspirations? Sharing is caring! Pin this post to come back to it.
Please let me know in the comments if you’d like some specific cake ideas and/or tag me on Instagram @theperfectcakeidea. I’d also love to see your creations.
