Cakes have been associated with weddings ever since medieval times. The traditional wedding cakes of that time were made from wheat as the grain was considered a symbol of fertility and prosperity. At the marriage ceremony, the grooms would eat part of the cake bread and break the rest over his bride's head.
This was done to invoke good fortune and blessings for a long life with many children. The guests would also try and obtain a crumb of the wedding cake try to share in the good fortune and prosperity of the couple. The cakes made in Medieval England were very much different from the cakes we know today. They were more like breads and were only flour-based foods without sweetening. The breads were not exclusive at weddings but they were also included in many celebratory feasts of the time.
The custom of stacking small buns in a large pile in front of the newlyweds also evolved during this time. The idea was to stack the buns as high as possible and to make it difficult for the newlyweds to kiss one another over the top. People believed that if the bride and groom were able to kiss over the tall stack, it will bring a lifetime of prosperity. Eventually, the concept of stacking them neatly and frosting them together was adopted as a more convenient option. During the reign of King Charles II around 1660, a French chef visited London and he saw the cake-piling ritual. He noticed the inconvenience of piling smaller cakes into a mound and so he conceived the idea of constructing them into a solid stacked system. The tradition of tiered cakes came for weddings sprang from this custom and the earliest tiered wedding cakes utilized short-cut broom sticks to separate their layers. But these elaborate cakes needed to be prepared days in advance before the wedding and because of the lack of refrigeration facilities, the cakes were usually frosted in lard to keep them from drying out. The lard were scooped out before the wedding but in later years, after people began adding sugar to the lard to improve its taste, the lard was allowed to be left on the wedding cake as a decorative icing. By the late 19th century, wedding cakes became really popular and now they are almost integral to any wedding ceremony.
And for the first wedding anniversary, people used to save a piece of the wedding cake which they will have to ensure good fortune. The top of the wedding anniversary cakes were kept frozen and then thawed out to eat on their first anniversary. Nowadays, cakes along with anniversary flowers are one of the most important parts of wedding anniversary traditions.
