Like everything else in Chinatown, you can really get a bargain.  This applies to wedding cakes also.  My friend got a two-layer (15″, 17″) round wedding cake for a fraction of the price she could have gotten elsewhere ($250).  The cakes come in various fruit flavors and fresh butter cream.  Yes, butter cream!!  Not bad if you’re on a tight budget, right?  

Food at wedding receptions should taste good.  This simple concept should never be forgotten.  This should hold true for wedding cakes as well.

However, it appears that nowadays, couples go all out choosing a wedding cake that looks extravagant and delicately decorated while forgetting about the real purpose of the cake, which is not decoration but is meant to be eaten.  I’ve seen couples spend over $1,500 on a cake, and you kinda wonder what they’re thinking.  These cakes would be packed with layers and layers of fine crafted flowers of all sorts and fondant satin icing that makes the cake have a sharp glossy look (and is used presumably to help the cake keep its shape since using butter cream would be too soft and the decorations wouldn’t hold).  With the ”fla-fla” on the cake, I can’t image cutting that cake because it just looks… well sooo beautiful (it appears to me that most couples order such expensive cakes mainly to display the “wow” factor so common in today’s culture where each wedding has to surpass previous ones).  Not only that, I can’t image eating such cakes because I just don’t like the taste of fondant icing (which is hard icing and which most cakes will be topped with)… because to me, cake icing should be made of soft buttery cream, and not hard candy-like tasting molasse.

Aside from the fact that most couples go for the “look” when they choose a wedding cake, these cakes are often overpriced.  I guess it’s because it takes so much time and talent to craft each design on the cake.  To me, at the end of the day, you’re going to have to eat the cake because cakes are desserts - and desserts are meant to be eaten.  So, if it is made to be eaten, taste should be the overriding factor.  Don’t you agree?