Pretty in Pink :: Austin Wedding Cakes

This is one of the very first wedding cakes that I made. It is a dummy cake, made out of Styrofoam and decorated with fondant. The purpose of a dummy cake is to practice new skills and techniques and to use them as models.

Dummy cakes are great for displays because you can easily change the details, such as the flower or ribbon to create a completely different look.

In the wedding industry, many people throw around the idea of using a dummy cake to save money. However, this is a really bad idea for several reasons.

1. Dummy's take the same amount of time to decorate as they do a real cake. The average wedding cake takes me approximately 2-3 to bake. The decorating time adds another 10-20 hours depending on the complexity of the design. That is why "wedding cake" cost is higher than a traditional cake.

2. Once you purchase the dummy cake, you still have pay for the supplemental cakes or desserts. Essentially you are paying twice for the same thing.

3. Dummy cakes are not environmentally friendly. Weddings produce a lot of waste and everything gets thrown out when it's over. Since the cake is Styrofoam, it gets tossed in a landfill and sits there, ruining our environment. You wouldn't want to be responsible for knowingly ruining our environment even more?

There are other reasons as well, but the main point is that dummy cakes are used as models only, not for actual use at an event.

P.S. All of the cakes featured in magazines are dummy cakes. I don't mean the cakes from actual weddings, but ones created for photo shoots and editorial type of content.