Ask the Expert: Wedding Cake Advice From Cutter & Squidge

Cutter & Squidge wedding cake tasting tin with six labelled flavour samples, pink roses and a buttercream cake behind

When it comes to choosing a wedding cake, how it tastes matters just as much as how it looks. We spoke with the team behind Cutter & Squidge, whose wedding cake collection is built around at-home tasting and straightforward online ordering, to hear their advice on choosing a cake designer, the trends shaping weddings this year, and how to style a cake so it feels like part of the day rather than something that simply arrived in a box. From ruffle finishes to flavour decisions that take longer than the design, they share their tips for a cake you would genuinely want a second slice of.

How would you describe your cake design style, and what drew you to working in the wedding industry?

We built our wedding cake collection deliberately differently. The starting point was removing everything that makes ordering a wedding cake more stressful than it needs to be: the consultation process, the bespoke design meetings, the cake maker attending the venue on the day to set up.

What we replaced it with was a collection of pre-set designs that couples can taste at home first, choose online, and have delivered fully assembled. The designs are either a clean buttercream finish with no decoration, ready for a florist to dress with flowers on the day, or with light decoration that sits comfortably within most wedding aesthetics. The whole thing is designed to be effortlessly stylish without the price tag or the faff that usually comes with it.

What are your top tips for couples when choosing their wedding cake designer?

Start by working out what matters most to you: is it the flavour, the look, how easy the whole process is, or the budget? Most couples try to find someone who ticks every box and end up going round in circles.

Get clear on your priorities first, then find a designer whose work genuinely fits your style. Look at what they have made before, not just their best shots, and make sure the ordering process works for your life rather than theirs.

What is the biggest wedding cake trend you are seeing this year?

Couples are stripping things back. Less ceremony around the cake, less fuss around the ordering process, and a much clearer sense of what they want rather than what they feel they are supposed to have. Weddings are becoming more relaxed in style and in budget, and the cake is following suit.

Do you have a signature cake style that couples often ask for?

Our ruffle finish is the one that comes up most. It has a clean, textured finish that works beautifully on its own and even better when a florist adds flowers to match the wedding arrangements. It is one of those designs that looks completely different depending on which flowers go on it, so couples get something that feels personal without us having to start from scratch every time.

Hand reaching for a slice of cake from a gold platter of wedding cake tasting samples by Cutter & Squidge

What advice would you give couples to make sure their cake tastes as good as it looks?

Pick a cake maker whose cakes you have eaten before, not just seen in photographs. Photography tells you very little about how something tastes.

And choose flavours that you love; it is your wedding day, not a committee decision. You do not need to find the one flavour that works for every single guest.

How do you work with couples to create a cake that reflects their personalities and complements their overall wedding aesthetic?

All our cakes are pre-designed, so the couple's job is simply to find the finish that fits their day. In practice, the aesthetic decision tends to be the easy part; it is the flavours that take the longest to land on. We have had couples spend forty-five minutes on the flavour decision alone, which is exactly why we have the at-home tasting tin.

Do you have any tips for styling a wedding cake alongside flowers, table settings and venue styling?

Because our cakes come in plain finishes, they are designed to be dressed on the day by whoever is doing the flowers. A few stems from the bouquet on the top tier is often all it takes to tie the whole thing into the room.

We also have a lot of couples who go for several smaller cakes rather than one large one, and style them on a cake table using stands at different heights with flowers running through. It is one of the most effective ways to make the cake feel like part of the wider décor rather than something that just arrived in a box.

If you were designing a cake for a wedding featuring LILY & ROO jewellery, how would you bring that elegance into the design?

LILY & ROO pieces tend to be delicate and considered rather than loud, so we would lean straight toward our plain buttercream finish, nothing competing with the jewellery, just a beautifully smooth cake that lets the flowers and the setting do the work.

If we were styling it, we would ask the florist to keep the flowers on the cake small and loose, the same way you would style a fine jewellery flat lay rather than a full arrangement. The idea is that everything on the table- the cake, the flowers, the jewellery- feels like it belongs to the same moment rather than fighting for attention.

Slice of carrot wedding cake with cream cheese buttercream on a ceramic plate beside a Cutter & Squidge tasting tin

Close-up of wedding cake tasting slices showing carrot, lemon, chocolate and raspberry sponge and buttercream layers

What is your favourite LILY & ROO jewellery piece, and why?

The Layered Mini Gold Necklace. This is the kind of piece you put on and forget you are wearing, which is exactly what you want on a wedding day when there is already a lot going on. It sits beautifully whether you are in something structured or something more relaxed, and it photographs well without trying to. The simplicity of it is its beauty.

If you could give couples one golden tip for the perfect wedding cake, what would it be?

Taste it before you order. The way a cake looks in a picture and the way it tastes on the day are two completely different things, and on your wedding day both matter.

Order a sample tin, sit down with the people whose opinions you trust, and choose the flavour that you would genuinely want a second slice of. The rest tends to fall into place after that.

What has been the most valuable lesson you have learned running your business?

Focus. It sounds simple, but it took us longer than we would like to admit to really live by it. When you try to do too many things at once, none of them gets done properly, and in a business where quality is everything, that is a problem you cannot afford. The most valuable thing we learned was to get very clear on what we wanted to be, and then put everything into getting there. The rest can wait.

Find Out More From Cutter & Squidge

You can find out more about Cutter & Squidge and their wedding cake collection at https://cutterandsquidge.com/, or follow Cutter & Squidge on Instagram for wedding cake inspiration and new designs.

At LILY & ROO, we design jewellery to be worn long after the day itself. Explore our bridal collection to find the pieces that will finish your look.

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