Let Them Eat...Styrofoam?

One of the highlights of any wedding reception is the cutting of the wedding cake. It's always on your mind whether the bride or groom will mash the cake into each other's face. While that has sometimes led to one or the other grabbing handfuls of cake and starting a food fight, usually the ceremony is a tasteful affair.

What you may not have realized is that some of those gorgeously designed wedding cakes may not have been a real wedding cake at all. In fact, they may have been fake cake!

Fake cake? Yes! There's a growing trend in weddings now to substitute fake wedding cakes for the real thing. You might initially recoil at the idea of having a fake cake at your own wedding, but there is a certain sense -- and cents -- to it.

Many people at weddings don't actually eat the cake and often large amounts end up in the trash. That's hard-earned money for the bride and groom ending up in the garbage. A fake cake gives brides the opportunity to have a wedding cake that's every bit as beautiful as a real one, but at a reduced cost. Wedding guests are then served from a separate sheet cake that's kept "offstage" out of view, and no one is the wiser.

Equally important, fake cakes can save you hundreds of dollars.

Fake cakes typically have Styrofoam tiers as their support system. They're then covered in fondant and decorated just as any real cake would be. Ribbons, flowers, embellishments. It's all good on the outside, because the outside is just the same as a real cake. The only difference is what's underneath.

I can hear the howls already. What about the cake cutting ceremony?! There are a couple of ways that's handled: either a "slice" is cut out of the Styrofoam and a piece of real cake inserted (and marked on the outside so the bride and groom know where to cut) or one of the tiers of the cake is actually real and used for the cake cutting.

A few other advantages of going the fake cake route are that you don't have to worry about the temperature melting your icing and you don't have to fear the cake collapsing.

In fact, the photos on this page are actually all fake cakes and come from the portfolio of Ultimate Fake Cakes in Howell, MI. Liz Pietila does an amazing job creating these gorgeous masterpieces.

So the next time you're at a wedding and you're tempted to sneak a taste of the cake before it's served, don't be surprised if you end up with a mouthful of Styrofoam. Marie Antoinette has nothing on these fake cake beauties.