Choosing your dream wedding cake can be a daunting experience and it is a good idea to narrow down your wedding cake designs to your top three choices, before contacting your chosen supplier. There is also a wide range of wedding cake stands to consider. Most bakeries will provide you with photographs of their previous creations, but you will find it a much easier process if you have already done your research and have a pretty good idea of the design, colour and flavour required. This can be easily achieved by cutting out pictures from magazines, online research and checking out specialist wedding cake websites.

Wedding cakes should taste as stunning as they look.

Specialist suppliers take great pride in producing sumptuous "gourmet" wedding cakes, using only the utmost quality ingredients, in a wide variety of fillings. A popular modern trend is for each of the individual tiers of a cake to be produced in different flavours. Alternatively, you could consider two separate cakes, a bride's cake and a groom's cake, in two separate flavours. An experienced pastry chef can mix and match different flavours and will ensure that the flavours compliment each other. It is a good idea to make arrangements with your chosen supplier to sample the cakes and flavoured icings before making your final choice.

Wedding cakes made out of individual cup cakes are a popular choice.

Wedding cakes can also be produced in a variety of colours to match your theme and can even include colour coordinated bases and wedding cake stands. For a really stunning effect why not consider a different colour for each of the cakes tiers. Cakes can be produced in an infinite number of shapes and can either be stacked or tiered. Cakes made out of individual cup cakes are becoming increasingly popular. There is also a wide variety of different wedding cake stands to choose from.

Calculate the size of your cake based on the anticipated number of guests.

You will need to carefully consider the size of your cake. This should be based on the number of wedding guests you are expecting and whether you are serving the cake as a dessert in its own right or as an accompaniment to coffee. You should also remember to add around an extra 10 to12 servings if you are planning to keep your wedding cakes top tier.

Make sure your precious cake arrives in one piece.

Make sure that you finalise the transportation arrangements, which needs to be considered very carefully, to ensure that your cake arrives at the wedding reception location in one piece. If you are planning an outdoor wedding reception you will also need to consider the potential problems of heat and humidity that may affect your cake.