If you’re an amateur cake decorator thinking of making your first wedding cake, you may feel overwhelmed before you even begin. There are lots of things to consider and many decisions to make in the planning stages of how to decorate a wedding cake. Make the project more manageable by addressing all of these things well ahead of the final days of baking, decorating, and assembling.

To begin, you’ll want to be sure you have enough cake for all the guests, so the size of the cake is an important decision and one that may affect your decorating choices as well. Then there are the obvious and fun selections of flavors and colors that might be the first thing you’ll consider.

Equally important in planning how to decorate a wedding cake are the choices for the type of icing and decorations you’ll use. These decisions may be based on which decorating materials you’re most comfortable working with or what type of look you want to achieve. In the planning stage, you’ll need to make some decisions and get at least a general idea of how the cake will be decorated.

The size of the guest list will determine the minimum size of the cake, although for larger parties the display cake can be supplemented with plain sheet cakes for serving. They’re easier to cut into servings, and using them frees up some decorating time and expense so you can spend more of these resources on the display cake.

At this point in planning how to decorate a wedding cake you’ll also need to decide which type of icing and decorations will be used. Buttercream icing is simple to make and use and has a great flavor. Fondant, on the other hand, looks terrific, with a sleek, professional finish, but it’s a little more challenging to learn to use. Store-bought prepared fondant can be expensive and usually doesn’t taste very good. A homemade marshmallow fondant is much tastier and is inexpensive to make.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the wedding cake decorations, toppers, and colors.