Wedding Cake Traditions & Customs
Wedding ceremonies are chock-full of traditions and customs with a rich history. This includes the wedding cake. For your amusement, therefore, we offer some of the more interesting traditions of today and yesteryear.
• That darling of Christmas, the traditional fruitcake showed up at weddings in Britain, with the fruit and nuts being a symbol of fertility.
• Cutting the wedding cake together, still a predominant ritual at weddings, symbolizes the couple’s unity, their shared future, and their life together as one.
• In old England it was traditional to bake a ring into the wedding cake as a symbol of bliss and happiness. The guest whose piece of cake contained the ring, it was said, could look forward to a full year of uninterrupted happiness.
• It is believed that an unmarried male guest who keeps a piece of wedding cake under his pillow as he sleeps will increase his chances of finding a mate. An unmarried bridesmaid who does the same will dream of her future husband.
• There’s a similar superstition for the ladies: Take a small piece of wedding cake, pass it three times through a wedding ring and then lay the cake under your pillow. In your dreams that night your future husband will appear to you. Place a small piece of wedding cake under your pillow and put a borrowed wedding ring on the third finger of your left hand. Before you retire to bed arrange the shoes, which you have worn that day in the shape of a T. Then, it is said, your future husband will appear to you in your dreams.
• In the middle ages the couple kissed over a small cluster of small cakes, brought along by their guests.
• Early wedding cakes were made from wheat or barley and were broken over the bride’s head to signify fertility and marital happiness. The guests would rush to pick up the crumbs as good luck charms.
• In many countries, the top tier of the wedding cake is still often kept as a christening cake for the first child.
But what about the tradition of smashing cake into your spouse’s face? How did it originate? Our sources say. . . it’s just plain fun.