A look back in time: Popular late 80s/early 90s wedding cake style

 

In the last post, I shared a ruffle wedding cake with a ‘modern vintage’ style (you can view the post here). Today, I’m taking a look back at a very popular style for wedding cakes in the late 80s/early 90s with four of my cakes from this time.

 

 

Romantic, heart shaped cakes with two tiers separated by pillars were by far the most requested style for wedding cakes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Icing details such as delicate lace and extension work, piped embroidery (all done by hand without stencils), and pretty garrett frills were very common at this time, as was the traditional fruit cake.

 

Let’s take a closer look at each cake…

 

1) Made for a Rockhampton wedding, this first cake is the youngest of the group that I’m sharing today, having been made in May 1993.

Features include:

• Icing flowers: Pink roses & rose buds, violets, forget-me-nots.
• Other details: Lacework, small piped dots inside the lacework scallops as part of the design, small plastic bride & groom cake topper.

 

 

 

2) Pillars separating the two tiers are more visible in the photo of this next cake, the second youngest of the group, made in April 1990 for a Mount Isa wedding.

Features include

• Icing flowers: Open roses in a purple-blue shade, and white forget-me-nots.
• Other details: Freehand piped embroidery above the apricot ribbon, and a few layers of lace and extension work below the ribbon.

 

 

 

3) You can see the same type of lace and extension work below the pink ribbon on each tier of this Mount Isa wedding cake from March 1990. Above the ribbon, piped embroidery is again a feature, but in a different pattern than on the previous cake.

Features include:

• Icing flowers: Orange & pink carnations and roses, white forget-me-nots. The flowers on the bottom tier covered one entire half of the tier. Although partially hidden by the angle of this photo, the full effect was lovely in person, where you could see all of the flowers, thanks to the pillars separating the two tiers.
• Other details: Lace & extension work, freehand piped embroidery, cake topper (supplied by the bride) with bells, pearls, tulle and ‘With This Ring’ book.

 

 

 

4) Finally, we have this Mount Isa wedding cake from August 1989, with stacked tiers, rather than pillars.

Features include:

• Icing flowers: Cattleya orchids, daffodils, and blue-centred white blossoms.
• Other details: Piped embroidery between the blue ribbons, which were placed at the top of garrett frills on each tier, ribbons in place of a second spray of flowers on one side of the cake.

 

 

Heart shaped wedding cakes have an inherently romantic quality, whether decorated in a classic or contemporary style. Many cakes of the late 80s and early 90s took this romantic quality and further enhanced it through the addition of delicate icing flowers and other fine icing details. Thank you for taking a look back with me at a very popular style of wedding cake from this time.

 

If you’ve enjoyed this post, you may also like:

• Vintage Wedding Cake – Rockhampton
• Vintage Wedding Cake – Mount Isa

• Vintage Inspired Ruffles – Kenilworth

 

 

Tagged: cake, cake decorator, cake toppers, from the vault, garrett frills, Gympie, icing flowers, lace & extension work, Mt Isa, piped embroidery, vintage, wedding, wedding cake