31 Days of Wedding Planning: Day 18--Cake and Dessert

Now the main meal is important, but the dessert is really important! It's funny because my fiance doesn't really care for desserts or sweets and I actually included something in my vows saying we would "agree to disagree on desserts and decor pillows". Agreement or disagreement, we did have cake and dessert at our wedding. Originally I wanted pies but he vetoed that...looking back, not sure why the anti-sweets guy got to make that call, but oh well, I love what we ended up doing.

Now cake is the traditional dessert to have at your reception, however there are many new sweet trends that are becoming more popular:

cupcakes
pies
different cakes, one at each table--even as part of centerpiece
candy table
chocolate fountains
dessert table

I knew that I did not want a huge wedding cake to feed everyone. How many weddings have you been to where there is SO much leftover cake? I did not want that to happen...especially after talking to a local baker and finding out much money cakes cost!

When you are planning this part of your wedding, here are some things to consider:

What do you and your fiance like? It is your day after all, so let this be something you love or something that has a special memory/meaning attached to it for you.
What are your colors and theme? The style of your wedding may lend itself very well to a specific kind of dessert. The dessert can also be a great way to incorporate your colors in a fun and tasty way.
How many guests are you inviting? Along with food, dessert gets more expensive as your guest count increases. If you have a large wedding, you may want to consider cupcakes, mini desserts, or a candy table to cut costs from a large cake. Another idea is to have a smaller cake for the cutting and pictures but then get several sheet cakes (Costco is a great option for this) for the majority of the eating.

One of my girlfriends had a friend make her wedding cake. It had fondant in her wedding colors and the Bride and Grooms' initals as cake toppers. It was gorgeous. I asked her who had made her cake and contacted the girl to see if she would be interested in making one for me as well. I had seen some ideas on Pinterest and knew exactly what I wanted: simple (are you seeing a pattern yet?), two layers, fresh summer berries as the decoration. I wanted white cake with strawberry filling. She made me a sample so that I could taste it. The cake was so moist, her filling was so delicious, AND she had tried a new white chocolate frosting recipe. Normally, I am not a big white chocolate fan, but this was SO incredible! We went with that combo. I gave her pictures and told her that I really just wanted it simple and she could arrange the berries however she felt looked best. When she arrived with the cake, my jaw dropped! It was exactly what I had hoped for. I loved it!

Some of our wonderful church ladies carrying the cake to the food tent.

Don't you just want a piece?

I love how she added the blossoms!

Oh my yumm!!! It tasted so good. I was fine that I had a small plate of the food, but I wish I could have had 2 big slices of cake :)

Now you have probably looked at that cake wondering, how did that feed 250 people? It didn't. We had a different dessert for the guests. I wanted to stick with simple, summer, country dessert and I came up with this idea: vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping and a heart-shaped sugar cookie!

We were able to get a special purchase from Costco for the berry topping. You know their very berry sundaes that are so good? We ordered 2 cases of that berry topping. We ordered gallon tubs of vanilla ice cream from WalMart and my mom and I made 23 dozen sugar cookies. Look at how much flour and butter we needed! It would have been SO nice to have 2 ovens to speed up the baking process. We could roll and cut the dough much faster than our oven would bake them. We baked them a few weeks before the wedding and froze them. They were thawed on the wedding day and it turned out great. Right before we put the cookies in the oven, we sprinkled clear sugar crystal sprinkles on them to add a little sparkle. :)