Flowers are used to inspire many of the designs for my client’s special day, and are always carefully considered to ensure continuity of the day’s styling.
It’s worth mentioning from the offset, there are certainly other decorative options for floral designs, but if your heart is set on realistic 3 dimensional flowers to adorn your cake, I would say your next question is fresh or sugar?
Both are beautiful to work with for their own qualities, but there are pros and cons for each. I’ve set these out for you below.
SUGAR FLOWERS
PROS
- With sugar flowers, you can have the flowers you wish to have on your cake with no restrictions. Varieties of flowers that may be out of season, toxic, or unobtainable due to it’s rarity can be created with sugar paste. Imaginative, made up flowers can be made – perhaps something a little more abstract, stylised or created in black in white. The imagination is the limit.
- They are food safe, free from pesticides, and allergen safe.
- Sugar flowers elevate a cake to a piece of art with high sentimental value, and create a very special wow moment for you and your guests. Taking days to make with love care and craftsmanship, they are cut, moulded and shaped from sugar paste, petal by petal, to form realistic looking flowers, even in the smallest of details.
- I recommend keeping your sugar flowers in a dry place, away from moisture, and somewhere they are safe from being knocked. In doing so they can be kept for a long time after the wedding day. A beautiful and very special keepsake for you both, and if you have a large floral arrangement planned, have you thought about giving some of your sugar flowers as a sentimental gift to loved ones?
CONS
- They take time, care and dedication to make and this is reflected in the price.
- A sugar flower is made to resemble the delicate likeness of real flower, and as a result they are fragile. They must be handled with care.
FRESH FLOWERS
PROS
- Fresh flowers are naturally very beautiful and often have a natural floral scent too
- Fresh flowers are the cheaper of the two options, as sugar flowers are a labour of love, handcrafted over days.
CONS
- The styling of your wedding is often carefully considered to flow throughout all elements of your day. However the fresh flowers you choose for the styling maybe unsafe to use with your cake. Some varieties are toxic when consumed, and so to keep the cake food safe, I don’t recommend these are used. Be sure to check with your cake designer if the fresh flowers you wish to have are safe to use on your cake. An additional note is that some florists do use pesticides on their flowers – be sure to share with your florist that the fresh flowers ordered for your cake design are to be used in contact with food.
- Fresh flowers do unfortunately wilt. Fresh flowers are added to the cake last minute to keep them as fresh as possible, but they will begin to wilt once out of water, and this will inevitably happen more quickly in hot weather.
A little side note – if you wish to keep your fresh flowers at a special memento after your wedding day there are some lovely options out there, from drying them, having them preserved in resin, or having an artist paint a portrait of them. The fresh flowers from your cake won’t keep as well - this is more a note for your bouquet perhaps.
I hope these points make clear which of fresh or sugar flowers are right for you and your cake – if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch!
Clare x