Anyone that has been to enough weddings has seen a cake topper decide that it wants to be anywhere but on top of the cake. It usually goes like this: The cake sits for an hour or so and begins to get softer, the ceramic topper with the poor center of gravity and improper weight distribution starts to lean. Unfortunately the tiny base of the topper is no match for the forces at work and the topper falls. It would be nice if it jumped clear of the cake when falling, but no such luck; it hits the top tier, then the middle; and finally crashes into the corner of the bottom tier and just like that your very beautiful cake becomes very ugly.
Nearly all cake gets softer the longer it is out of refrigeration and what used to be a flat firm cake top starts to give with the weight of the topper. As long as the topper has an appropriately sized base, it’s usually not a problem, but many of the toppers being sold today have a tiny base and incredibly poor weight distribution (like the one with the groom holding the bride).Here is an easy test to see if your topper could cause you problems on your wedding day:
Put a clean pillowcase on your pillow and sit your topper right in the middle of the pillow. If it doesn’t wobble and fall off… it should be safe on your cake, assuming it isn’t really heavy.
Even if it is heavy, your cake baker can probably account for the weight by adding support underneath it. It’s easy to support a heavy topper with a big base, but supporting a top heavy topper with a small base can still often lead to disaster.
If you already have a topper that doesn’t pass the pillow test, you can always use flowers or something else as the cake topper and place the ceramic topper on the table. It looks great and it will eliminate a potential wedding day problem.
Happy Planning!
(reposted from my blog entry on weddingaces.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment