Wedding cakes have accumulated centuries of ritual, status, folklore and very good stories. Some are well documented; others have been repeated for so long that they have become part of cake mythology.
Here are seven of the more unusual pieces of wedding-cake history, with the legends labelled as legends.
A Royal Cream Cascade Wedding Cake by Anges
1. Roman wedding bread is one ancestor of the modern wedding cake
In ancient Rome, bread or cake made from grain was broken over a bride's head as part of the marriage ritual. It is better thought of as an ancestor of the later wedding-cake tradition than as “the first wedding cake” in the modern sense.
2. White icing became a conspicuous display of wealth
Highly refined white sugar was once expensive, so a brilliantly white iced cake could signal status. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's 1840 wedding cake is especially well documented: it was enormous, elaborately decorated and weighed about 300 lb. Victoria did not single-handedly invent white wedding cake, but royal fashion helped make grand white-iced cakes enormously influential.
Queen Victoria's wedding cake weighed about 300 lb.
3. Cutting the cake became a shared ceremony
The familiar photograph of newlyweds cutting the cake together grew out of changing wedding customs rather than one identifiable moment of invention. As cakes became larger and more elaborate, cutting them became a ceremonial act and eventually a shared task for the couple.
4. The St Bride's tiered-cake story is one of London's great cake legends
St Bride's Church in Fleet Street tells the romantic story of baker's apprentice William Rich, who supposedly took inspiration from Christopher Wren's tiered steeple when creating a spectacular wedding cake. The church preserves the story as part of its history, but it is safest treated as a famous origin story rather than proof that no tiered cake existed before it.
St Bride's steeple, long associated with the story of the tiered wedding cake.
5. Cake under the pillow was supposed to predict romance
One old British custom held that an unmarried guest who slept with a piece of wedding cake beneath their pillow might dream of a future partner. Romantic in theory; less appealing when you consider the icing on the sheets.
6. The groom's cake has a long history
British wedding traditions have included separate cakes associated with the bride and groom, and the groom's cake later became especially established in parts of the United States. Historical versions were often darker, richer cakes containing fruit or alcohol. The gendering of flavours has aged less well than the idea of having two cakes.
Unicorn croquembouche cake by Anges
7. The medieval pile-of-buns story survives too
A frequently repeated account of medieval English weddings describes a pile of small buns over which the couple tried to kiss. Success was supposed to promise prosperity. A related story claims that a visiting French pastry cook saw the custom and later developed the croquembouche. That connection is best treated as culinary folklore rather than a documented invention story.
Wedding-cake history is messy, which is part of the fun. Traditions borrow from one another, royal fashion amplifies existing customs and good stories become attached to beautiful objects.
For a deeper account, read the history of wedding cakes. If you are planning one now, browse our current wedding cakes.
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