Ancient Romans baked a wheat or barley cake and broke it over the bride's head as a symbol of her fertility. It became a tradition to pile up several small cakes, one on top of the other, as high as they could, and a bride and groom kissed over the tower and tried not to knock it down. If they were successful, it meant a lifetime of prosperity.
Sweet, iced wedding cakes, sophisticated and diverse in their design, sprang from more modest "grooms-cakes". These wedding cakes were long and flat, often made by a family member. There was such a custom: when young unmarried girls left the reception, they took a piece of cake, wrapped in a piece of bridal veil. Each girl put her cake under the pillow that night and dreamt of her future groom.
Later, stacked wedding cakes started. Around the 13th century, Frenchmen began icing stacked cakes, beginning the style of wedding cakes we know today. In the 1660s, during the reign of King Charles II, a French chef visited London and observed a cake piling ceremony. Surprised at a haphazard manner, in which the British stacked baked goods were often tumbled, he conceived the idea of transforming the mountain of bland biscuits into an iced, multi-tiered cake sensation.
British papers of the day are supposed to have deplored the French excess; however, before the close of the century, the British bakers were offering the very same magnificent creations.
The stacked cakes also gave rise to some interesting wedding rituals. One of them was that the number of stacks a bride and groom could reach over for a kiss represented the number of children they would have. Today, we look upon the wedding cakes as delicious good luck symbols, rather than signs of fertility. Nevertheless, a wedding cake is so important at the wedding reception that it occupies its special table, which is often decorated with flowers, ribbons, etc.
Today, personalizing and making your wedding different from the others is a strong motivation for many brides. Although traditions are the same, everyone wants to make a wedding somewhat special and distinguished among the others. It concerns a wedding theme, food, certainly, a wedding cake and decorations, including flowers, wedding candles and many other things. A wedding candle is a symbol of romanticism and a candle lightning of the wedding setting will make guests feel and absorb all the romantic shades of the event. If your theme is a romantic wedding, wedding cake should also correspond to this idea.
While a traditional wedding cake is often round, white and with a white or pastel color frosting, it seems that a chocolate cake will perfectly suit the idea of a "candle romantic wedding". In fact, today, there are many alternatives to the traditional wedding cake, which are appropriate for diverse wedding themes. What about colorful wedding cakes? You can use vivid colors, such as blue, sage green, lavender, bright yellow or rust orange. You may choose the colors according to your wedding season, for instance, rust orange for autumn, while green and blue for spring. The alternatives are many; you only need to make the right choice.