Death to the wedding cake! Modern couples are choosing doughnuts and pie instead

Until fairly recently, there was only one acceptable, dependable dessert at a wedding: wedding cake. A tall, tiered, fondant covered, rose embellished wedding cake, complete with a miniature couple perched right on top.

But I’ve attended at least five weddings over the past two years and they all had one thing in common: no cake.

“It’s more 50/50 these days, leaning towards 60/40. People are really steering away from wedding cakes at their wedding,” said Shubert Ho, owner of Shooby Doo Catering in Edmonds. “People are kind of bored with the whole wedding cake idea. The idea is not to have one thing. It’s to have five things or 10 things for people to choose from.”

Seattle masseuse Amalia Morsi married her husband, Eric Burns, last September.

“We had a mountain of Top Pot doughnuts and four pies from A La Mode pies. Mexican chocolate pie, some kind of berry and hazelnut pie. There was a lemon meringue,” Morsi said.

Why did she decide to skip the classic wedding cake?

“Doughnuts are a big part of our lives since we moved here,” Morsi said. “There are Top Pots everywhere. I feel like it’s more visually appealing to have a giant stack of doughnuts as opposed to one cake. You’re not locked into one flavor.”

Diana Chamberlain is a super newlywed. She married Randy Tonkin a few weeks ago. Instead of wedding cake, the couple asked about a dozen friends to bring a homemade dessert of their choice. It’s something Chamberlain had done for a friend a few years ago.

“I thought it was such a good idea because the desserts meant so much more when your friends make it. Each friend put so much effort into making the dessert because it’s for your friend’s wedding. So you’re going to make the best thing you can possibly think of, as opposed to a bakery that’s like, ‘Oh, here’s another wedding. Let’s just turn this cake out,'” Chamberlain said. “It feels a little more personal.”

Over the past two summers, I have happily devoured fancy ice cream sandwiches, red velvet cupcakes, and Mexican Popsicles at weddings. But members of the older generations sometimes struggle with the break in tradition, as Morsi recalls.

“At first I think, yes, there was a lot of, ‘But where’s the cake? OK, you’ll have pie and doughnuts, but there will still be a cake, right?'” Morsi said.

“And we were like, ‘No. No cake.’ So I think, at first, it was confusing. But by the end, I was trying to take my dad’s empty pie plate away and he was like, ‘Oh, no no. I’m going in for another piece of pie. Don’t take my plate,'” she said. “So I think it worked out okay!”

Both brides, and Ho, confirm that the modern matrimonial sweets are a huge hit.

“Almost every dessert bar that we do, there are none left,” Ho said. “You know, when you pack up wedding cake to-go, nobody really walks out with a box of wedding cake. But in the event that we do have those finger desserts leftover, people grab them as quickly as they can and take it home.”

Chamberlain says skipping the cake saves a lot of money. There’s the cost of the cake itself, the cake tasting, and cake delivery.

“You don’t have the cake cutting fee, which is another ridiculous thing that venues do,” Chamberlain said. “You’re like, ‘Really? You’re charging me to cut a piece of cake?’ It’s like $2-3 a slice sometimes. It’s ridiculous.”

And if you still love cake and the tradition of smashing cake into your partner’s face, there are still plenty of bakeries ready to make you one. But I imagine if Marie Antoinette was getting married today, her famous words indicate that she’d leave the cake to the other couples: “Let them eat cake!”