I get it. Really, I do. It's a great, romantic notion. Your perfect day in the sun, and you and your love cut your wedding cake in the beauty of the Southern outdoors.
Sounds great! The reality is, however, that sun and heat can take a toll on a wedding cake. Remember that, while your wedding cake may seem to you like a monolithic pillar for your wedding day - a statue, almost! - it is still just eggs and flour.
Even the most well-built wedding cake (tiered cakes use a table-like structure system of plastic dowels and cardboard plateaus to stay aloft) will begin to melt in the heat of the American South. Trust me, I've seen it.
Does this mean you have to abandon all of your hopes and dreams for your perfect outdoor wedding? No! You have lots of options to make sure your artistic dessert continues to stay perfect.
1) Consider putting your cake indoors. Most outdoor venues that I have been to have some sort of indoor area around them. Usually it is the clubhouse for the golf course, or the inn which has that great outdoor courtyard for your reception. Put your cake inside the door to your outdoor area, that way it can benefit from the air conditioning, and still be seen by your guests on their way to your reception.
2) Go with fondant. No matter how much you decide you don't like it, fondant holds up better in the heat. It acts as a "hug" for the buttercream underneath, and will prevent the buttercream from sliding down the cake, which is what would happen if you had an all-buttercream, no-fondant cake.
3) At the very least, put a tent over the cake. For bigger budget weddings, consider an air-conditioned tent. But if you're on a budget, keeping the cake in the shade will help to prolong its life a little.
4) Cut the cake early. To give you an idea of the life-span of your cake before it meets you at the reception: your wedding cake will be refrigerated at the cake shop until about an hour before your guests arrive to your wedding. It thrives in the cold, so if you absolutely must have your cake in the Southern heat, try to cut it while it still has a little bit of that refrigeration left in it.
All in all, it is best to avoid putting your cake outdoors as much as possible. In fact, I try my hardest to sway my brides away from putting cakes outdoors ever, even if it is the fall or the winter. And the bigger your cake is, the more susceptible it will be to melting in the sunlight.
I have never had a cake fall, and I don't intend to start now!
2) Go with fondant. No matter how much you decide you don't like it, fondant holds up better in the heat. It acts as a "hug" for the buttercream underneath, and will prevent the buttercream from sliding down the cake, which is what would happen if you had an all-buttercream, no-fondant cake.
3) At the very least, put a tent over the cake. For bigger budget weddings, consider an air-conditioned tent. But if you're on a budget, keeping the cake in the shade will help to prolong its life a little.
4) Cut the cake early. To give you an idea of the life-span of your cake before it meets you at the reception: your wedding cake will be refrigerated at the cake shop until about an hour before your guests arrive to your wedding. It thrives in the cold, so if you absolutely must have your cake in the Southern heat, try to cut it while it still has a little bit of that refrigeration left in it.
All in all, it is best to avoid putting your cake outdoors as much as possible. In fact, I try my hardest to sway my brides away from putting cakes outdoors ever, even if it is the fall or the winter. And the bigger your cake is, the more susceptible it will be to melting in the sunlight.
I have never had a cake fall, and I don't intend to start now!
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