Design Influences for Your Wedding Cake You May Not Have Considered

When couples begin thinking about their wedding cake, they often start with flavour or size. But some of the most beautiful, meaningful cake designs come from influences you might not have considered at all. As a wedding cake designer, my role is to take those details that make your day yours and translate them into a cake that feels personal, thoughtful, and unforgettable.

Here are a few design influences that can quietly (or spectacularly) shape your wedding cake.

1. Your Wedding Flowers

Your wedding flowers are one of the most important design influences for your cake—something I’m especially passionate about as a creator of sugar flowers. The goal isn’t to recreate your florals in their entirety, but to edit them so they work beautifully in the space of a cake.

You may have flowers in abundance throughout your venue, but sugar flowers need to be carefully considered in scale, placement, and flow. When done well, they echo your floral styling without overwhelming the cake itself.

These gorgeous Miss Piggy roses - made in sugar - perfectly complemented the wedding flowers

2. Your Wedding Dress

This is usually the moment in a cake consultation when the groom gets sent out of the room.

Your dress can be a wonderful source of inspiration—whether it’s lace, pearls, delicate swags, or subtle sparkle. These details don’t need to be bold or obvious. Sometimes it’s just a quiet nod: a texture, a pattern, or a soft design detail that mirrors what you’re wearing as you walk down the aisle.

A touch of pearl detailing on the bottom tier

3. Bridal Party Colours

The colours worn by your bridal party can also play a role in your cake design. This doesn’t mean a brightly coloured cake—often, the most effective approach is subtlety.

If your bridesmaids are in blush pink, for example, a hint of that shade can be worked into the sugar paste or reflected in the sugar flowers. This oh so pretty cake at a Cliveden wedding has a blush pink bottom tier with a touch of sparkle to match the bridesmaids dresses.

Such a pretty design for this Cliveden House wedding

4. Meaningful Details

Some of the most special cakes are inspired by things that hold deep personal meaning.

It might be a particular flower—like the stephanotis I recently created because it was significant to the bride’s family.

This pretty stephanotis had a special meaning for the bride and groom

It could be a nod to your cultural heritage through colour, symbol, or floral choice. Or perhaps it’s something more unexpected—like a beloved pet.

This adorable basset hound couldn’t attend the wedding, but his presence was very much felt thanks to his appearance on the cake.

5. The Space Your Cake Will Be Displayed In

Where your cake will sit on the day is incredibly important—and often overlooked.

If your cake is displayed in the centre of a room or in front of a mirror, a 360-degree design ensures it looks beautiful from every angle. In larger spaces, scale matters. To create impact, we may add dummy tiers for height or extend decorations beyond the lines of the tiers so the cake doesn’t get lost in the room.

The stunning staircase at Hedsor House is a perfect backdrop for an elegant wedding cake

Bringing It All Together

My job as your wedding cake designer is to guide you through this thought process and weave together all the elements that are meaningful to you. The result is a unique, personal wedding cake—one that not only looks stunning on the day, but becomes part of the memories you’ll treasure for a lifetime.