There’s documentation of special wedding carbs from the first century CE.
The biographer of Alexander the Great, Quintus Curtius, wrote that Alexander’s father-in-law “ordered bread to be brought…for this was the most sacred symbol of betrothal among the Macedonians. The bread was cut with a sword and both men tasted it.”
That wasn’t too different from the wheat or barley cakes of the early Roman weddings. The bride had cake hit over her head, then her husband ate the morsels. This was meant to represent sharing.
Before the twentieth century, cakes with one tier were standard unless you were royalty or extremely wealthy. As for where tiers came from, the story goes that they were invented by a baker’s apprentice in the 18th century in London. He proposed to his boss’s daughter with a tiered cake.
In the 17th century England, a tradition started in which weddings had both a “bride cake” and a smaller “black cake” for the groom. The bride’s cake typically had white icing; it’s the one we’re familiar with today. The groom’s cake was mostly phased out over time. And that white icing said a lot about a couple. In the mid-sixteenth century in England, sugar was becoming more prominent than ever.
Around this time, whiter cakes meant the family had more money because whiter sugar was more refined and expensive.
In Victorian times, people saved a slice of their wedding cake to put on their first baby’s christening cake. Nowadays, you can buy a cake made mostly out of Styrofoam to save money.
Companies will include some real cake for the cake cutting tradition, then serve regular cake from the kitchen.
Cake toppers are a newer part of the wedding cake world. They were popularized in the 1950s in the United States.
And finally, $75 million is the record for the most expensive wedding cake.
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