Facts About Wedding Cakes, Bouquets & Confetti
 Confetti evolved from
centuries ago, where, with a marriage celebration, small biscuits were
being broken over the bride's head as a symbol of fertility. This, together
with the ancient Greek tradition of throwing nuts, grain and wheat, were
the forerunners of what we know today as confetti.
The first example of bridal bouquets were in the medieval times, (approximately
15th & 16th centuries), where brides carried wheat stalks, and wheat
was thrown at them.
At these medieval wedding feasts, dry biscuits were given to the wedding
guests, which were later replaced by small spiced buns (these spiced biscuits
& buns were the forerunners of modern fruit wedding cakes.
White icing was first introduced by french pastry cooks, during which
time good luck symbols became popular, a tradition which still exists
today in the form of figurines on wedding cakes.
Royal wedding cakes, of course, were in a class of their own. Queen Victoria's
wedding cake was adorned with Britannia, 3 metres in circumference, while
the cake done for Queen Elizabeth's wedding was 2.75 metres high.
In Britain, Australia and South Africa , a traditional wedding cake is
a a fruit cake with marzipan and icing.
In Austria and Germany a wedding cake would be a rich chocolate sponge
cake, and consists of cream, chocolate, cognac, nougat and toasted vanilla.
Marzipan is used for decoration together with sugar flowers or chocolate
artwork.
The French wedding cake, the croquemboch, is a pyramid of custard-filled
pastries, which is covered with a sticky almond base. Multi-coloured sugar
almonds are placed inside this pyramid.
The Italian wedding cake, 'Dolce', is soaked in liqueur. This cake is
often decorated with butter cream layers, toasted almonds and marinated
or glazed cherries.
Decoration on Polish wedding cakes takes the form of the Temple of Hymen,
the Greek god of marriage
Flowers adorn the tops of cakes in the Philippines, and are at least
6 tiers high.
Greek wedding cakes are often up to 8 tiers in height, and are linked
with all kinds of ornaments such as pillars, bridges and stands. The cake
is then decorated with a large amount of figurines.
The American version of a wedding cake is in the form of a sponge cake,
with butter icing and usually fresh flowers as decoration.
Going to Mexico, and these cakes tell the whole story of the bridal couple,
with little figurines in detailed costumes, in life-like settings.
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