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Yummy trends take the cake
Colors, styles liven staple of weddings
Dogwood flowers clip
Local bakers said pastels and flowers are popular summer wedding cake choices. - photo by Submitted
Bridal dresses may be white this summer, but not the wedding cakes.

“They tend to like more vibrant colors and they’re less afraid of colors during the summer,” Jeffrey Schwerzler said of brides to-be. “That’s for sure.”

Schwerzler and his wife, Karyn, own the Frosted Pumpkin gourmet bakery in southern Forsyth County. They’ve been in the wedding cake business for nearly two decades.

Overall, black and white weddings have been a popular choice for all seasons, but pastels and vibrant colors are summer favorites.

More than what’s on the outside of cakes, Schwerzler said it’s the flavor on the inside that changes most for the summer.

“We do a phenomenal carrot cake,” he said. “But they wouldn’t necessarily do that in the summertime. [In] summer, usually lighter cakes are a little more popular. So our vanilla genoise, which is sort of like a white cake with lemon mousse and raspberry mousse, has probably been one of our two most popular flavors ever.

“People tend to gravitate toward it more for the summer just because it’s light.”

Because of the warmer weather and heavy meals associated with weddings, Schwerzler said customers opt for “something lighter for dessert.”

“Our coconut crème cake has been pretty popular in summer also,” he said.

The busiest months for weddings are May, June, September and October. But with as many as 11 wedding cakes needed for most Saturdays, there aren’t many slow months, Schwerzler said.

Frank Fernando, owner of Creations Bakery in Cumming, said the “days of the old traditional cakes are over,” regardless of season.

Many brides are inclined to choose square and unusual shapes, as opposed to the customary round, tiered cakes. Cakes garnished in fresh flowers are also a popular trend, he said.

“It’s a more simple and elegant design,” Fernando said.

Among popular summer flowers are gerbera daisies, calla lilies and orchids in pinks, yellows and oranges. The blues and purples are more popular for fall and winter weddings, he said.

But like Schwerzler, Fernando said the popularity of different flavors of cake changes with the season.

“People have gone away from the standard vanilla cake,” he said. “They’re having a three- or four-layer, stacked cake, and each layer is a different flavor. One’s an almond pound cake, one’s a key lime cake, one vanilla and one chocolate.

“There’s no such thing as a standard wedding cake anymore. Every cake is a different color, different shape, different size and different flavor.”

Crevolyn Wiley, a wedding planner and co-owner of Wonderful Events & Celebrations in Gainesville, said cupcakes are also a big trend.

And using the traditional bride and groom as cake toppers has become almost a thing of the past. Instead, many couples opt for the silver-plated monograms.

“You see some really interesting things,” Wiley said. “Again, a lot of flowers and sometimes the monogram is very popular on the top or even the monogram on the cake is very pretty.”

Felicia Kincaid of “The Wedding Cake” in Sautee said she has been incorporating the brides’ jewelry in her cake designs, including her sister’s wedding cake.

“She had a broach on the back of her dress and it was gorgeous, so we got one that looked like the one on the back of her dress,” Kincaid said. “Probably one of the funkiest trends is just the bolder the colors and the different, not just round and square, but incorporating different shapes.”

As opposed to traditional frosting, fondant, with its malleable texture and ability to create nontraditional shapes, is always popular.

“Fondant has always been really big,” she said. “I do more and more cakes that are nontraditional than traditional. Some people don’t want to pay for the fondant, but they will do butter cream icing with fondant accents.”

Ashley Bates of the FCN regional staff contributed to this report.
E-mail Jennifer Sami at jennifersami@forsythnews.com.