You may already have seen these 19th century pieces of edible art pop up on your social media channels, however 2024 will be a year of bakers pushing and developing this trend. As always, we creatives love to take a great idea and make it our own, so my prediction is that you can expect to see more striking colour variations and intricate hand piped details on 2 and 3 tier wedding cakes this year.

This year expect to see more muted tones, as the trend for natural, earthy and organic colours continues to grow.

Movement using edible mediums will also grow to another level. Florals, as pretty as they are, will become less of a feature as cake artists continue to defy the laws of gravity and use icing, wafer paper and rice paper (to name a few tools) to bring height, depth, and now movement, to their cakes. Bye bye to 3-dimensional cakes and hello to 4D!

In the 15 years that I have been catering to the wedding cake market, there is one question that get asked repeatedly – “Can you make something in a unique shape”, the answer being ‘yes - of course!”

This year as brides and grooms seek an ever more personalized and bespoke service from their cake suppliers, I envisage a rise in the use of quirky shapes, out of the box silhouettes and very clever use of cake spacers.

In the quest for an avant-guard wedding cake that leaves instaram and tiktok users flustered with excitment, I expect there to be more demand this year for the cake that isn’t actually a cake. So long as it looks vaguely cake shaped and is made from something sweet, the ‘fake cake’ or ‘wedding cake alternative’ is going to stamp its mark in 2024. Wacky examples range from pancakes to churros - I’ve even heard the idea of cinnamon buns being rolled around!

The delicious Italian Millefoglie is another perfect example of this. The Italian wedding cake tradition started to spread its way around Europe last year, and I expect that will continue in 2024. This cake alternative also has the added element of ‘live decorating’, as the couple can decorate it in front of their guests before cutting into it. This interaction with your wedding cake, making the ceremony more fun to watch, is also something I think we will continue to see this year.

As tradition falls out of favour, and contemporary ideas and styles take prominence, I think 2024 will be a year of pushing cake design boundaries and elevating wedding cakes to a new tier!