Wedding cake

A wedding cake is the traditional cake served at wedding receptions following dinner. In some parts of England, the wedding cake is served at a wedding breakfast, on the morning following the ceremony. In modern Western culture, the cake is usually on display and served to guests at the reception. Traditionally, wedding cakes were made to bring good luck to all guests and the couple. Modernly however, they are more of a centerpiece to the wedding and are not always even served to the guests. Some cakes are built with only a single edible tier for the bride and groom to share. Wedding cakes can certainly range in size, from a small cake that feeds ten people, to a very large cake that will feed hundreds, all depending on the wedding. Modern pastry chefs and cake designers use various ingredients and tools to create a cake that will reflect the personalities of the couple. Marzipan, fondant, gum paste, buttercream, and chocolate are among some of the more popular ingredients used. Along with ranging in size and components, cakes range in price. Cakes are usually priced on a per-person, or per-slice, basis.[1] Prices usually range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars per-person or slice, depending on the Pastry Chef hired to make the cake. Wedding cakes and cake decorating in general have become a certain pop culture symbol in western society; many TV shows like Cake Boss or Amazing Wedding Cakes have become very common and are trending in today’s popular culture.A wedding reception is a party held after the completion of a marriage ceremony. It is held usually as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception: the couple receives society, in the form of family and friends, for the first time as a married couple. Hosts provide their choice of food and drink, although a wedding cake is popular. Entertaining guests after a wedding ceremony is traditional in most societies, and can last anywhere from half an hour to many h urs or even days. In some cultures, separate wedding celebrations are held for the bride's and groom's families. Before receptions—a social event that is structured around a receiving line, and usually held in the afternoon, with only light refreshments—became popular, weddings were more typically celebrated with wedding breakfasts (for those whose religious traditions encouraged morning weddings) and wedding balls (for those who were married in the evening). The popularity of receptions, rather than breakfasts, dinners, and balls, during the 20th century led to the name reception being applied to any social event after a wedding, whether it is brunch, tea, dinner, or a dance.A wedding breakfast is a dinner given to the bride, bridegroom and guests at the wedding reception that follows a wedding in the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and some other English-speaking countries. The Compact Oxford Dictionary[1] lists the phrase as only “British”, and the Merriam-Webster online dictionary[2] does not list it at all. Nowadays the wedding breakfast is not normally a morning meal, so its name is puzzling. The name is claimed[3] to have arisen from the fact that in pre-Reformation times the wedding service was usually a Eucharistic Mass and that the bride and bridegroom would therefore have been fasting before the wedding in order to be eligible to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. After the wedding ceremony was complete, the priest would bless and distribute some wine, cakes, and sweetmeats, which were then handed round to the company, including the bride and groom. This distribution of food and drink was therefore a literal “break fast” for the bride and groom, though others in attendance would not necessarily take Communion and therefore would not necessarily have been fasting. Since usage of the phrase cannot be shown to date back earlier than the first half of the nineteenth century; however, a pre-16th century origin seems unlikely.