A Pressed Wildflower Wedding Cake

Most wedding cakes decide between colour and restraint. This one refused to.

The design

Three tiers, washed in the palest blue and white, and then covered — not accented, covered — in pressed wildflowers. Blue, yellow, orange, pink and purple, scattered up all three tiers the way they grow rather than in a tidy cascade down one side.

The wash underneath is doing more work than it looks like. Against a white cake the flowers would read as confetti; against a pale blue-green they read as a meadow, because that is roughly the colour a meadow is behind its flowers.

How pressed flowers actually go on

Each flower is pressed and dried flat, then set into buttercream by hand, one at a time, working around the tiers rather than down them. There is no pattern to follow and no way to lift one once it is placed — the petals tear. So the composition is decided as it is built, which is the part that takes the time.

They also have to survive the drive and a few hours on a table. Pressed flat is what makes that possible; a fresh bloom of the same size would wilt against the buttercream before the cake was cut.

Why this one is worth showing

It is the clearest example on the site of a design that could not have come off a menu. There is no version of this cake that is chosen — only one that is worked out, flower by flower, for a particular couple and a particular day.

If that is the kind of cake your day wants, the first conversation is about the occasion rather than about tiers.