- Wedding Cakes
Tune up your tiers with these creative confections.
An easy way to update your wedding cake is to forgo the traditional round tiers and choose a square shape instead. With clean, crisp lines and perfect 90-degree angles, there’s something fresh and sophisticated about a modern, pared-down confection. Wedding cakes with square layers are especially eye-catching, so if you’re planning a contemporary-style celebration, then a modern cake will perfectly complement the wedding aesthetic.
For a more feminine and romantic take on the angular confection, top the cake with cascading florals or paint it, watercolor-style, in pastel hues. For a more minimal approach, consider an all-white cake with a singular wispy floral topper or a smattering of berries. For added glitz and glamour, choose a cake with an Art Deco inspiration or add acrylic stackers for a luxe look. You can even go edgy and urban with darker hues and concrete-style cakes and stands.
From geometric designs to sleek ruffles, take a look at some of our favorite square-shaped confections.
55 Beautiful Wedding Cake Ideas to Inspire You
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Simple Ruffles
Elements mimicking flow and movement, like ruffles, are an easy way to add a playful touch to a traditional all-white cake. This simple-yet-chic design was inspired by the bride’s gown, which featured a one-shouldered bodice with soft ruffles that gently fluttered as she moved.
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Modern Mondrian
This gold-and-gray confection features modern marbled tiers and cherry blossom branches fashioned from gum paste. Varying the heights of the square-shaped tiers adds visual interest, while the intricate, gold-piped lines give the overall design some subtle Mondrian-esque vibes.
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Pressed Fondant Base
Tiered, squared edges are an easy way to make an all-white cake a lot more striking. The bottom tier of this crisp, white cake features a subtle lace pattern pressed into the fondant. This cake, embellished with a handful of fresh blooms, proves that even with the subtlest of details, a square wedding cake is sure to be a stunner.
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Gorgeous Geometric
This all-white wedding cake is anything but basic. Keeping things modern and interesting are the triangle-shaped fondant panels affixed to the tiers and the trio of sculptural sugar cattleya orchids. This cake looks like an origami masterpiece.
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Topped With Fruit
Instead of fresh or sugar flowers, why not top your modern, square-tiered confection with fresh fruit? Choose in-season varieties so your wedding dessert can be an ode to the seasons. Plus, it adds pops of color to an all-white canvas.
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Asymmetrical Floating Backdrop
Sometimes all the cake embellishments you need are perfectly dried, wispy grasses. This design feels light, airy, and perfect for a summer wedding. We can imagine modern bohemian brides loving this cake.
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Mosaic Tile Pattern
This Mediterranean-inspired cake features hand-painted detailing on the bottom two tiers to resemble colorful blue-and-yellow tiles. Coupled with the flower on top, it's a fun and whimsical design, perfect for a more playful wedding vibe.
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Faux Bois Confection
This sculptural confection features faux bois (French for “fake wood”) tiers that are fashioned with a wood-graining tool that creates the wood texture on chocolate panels. This modern design is topped with a pair of taupe-colored sugar flowers.
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Mixing Shapes
A contemporary twist on wedding cakes is mixing shapes. Instead of going full-round or full-square, why not mix both in one cake? This creation boasts two round layers on the bottom and two square shapes on the top. The overall design, however, is simple, with blue floral details and a single flower as the topper.
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Color Blocking Cake
For a contemporary take on wedding cakes, consider a color-blocked option with geometric elements. This cake makes a play on corners with triangular accents and contrasts different tones—darker blues shine on white, and an orange-red floral accent pops against a deep blue block.
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Deconstructed Sizes
Deconstructing a cake and separating its different-sized tiers is such a contemporary way to present a wedding cake. This couple decorated theirs with an abundance of fresh flowers and leaves. We just adore these pretty confections on lucite stands. So chic!
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Industrial Trio
An edgier take on separated tiers, this trio of single-layered white cakes is accented with tulle and rhinestones and mounted on custom concrete and steel stands. It's a modern, industrial take on wedding cakes, and we can totally imagine this cake on display at an urban reception venue like a restored warehouse.
The cake stand is a crucial element of the wedding cake. Coordinate with your confectioner on the look you want, and make sure the stand matches the vibe of the wedding and highlights the cake of your dreams.
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Gold Galaxy
This trio of individual cakes is also mounted on concrete stands. But instead of going the urban route, these dark, black cakes are speckled with gold, making it seem like you're slicing into the galaxies. It's perfect for a celestial-themed wedding.
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Two-Toned Tiers
This concrete-inspired cake features two distinctly-shaped tiers in two different hues and is topped with a gorgeous cascading floral arrangement on a lucite cake stand.
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Pop Art Cake
For summer weddings, bold colors such as yellows, pinks, and oranges are an easy way to complement the season and feel especially fresh. This cake, featuring a pop-art design, is accented with vibrant orange sugar paste rings—a fun, geometric option for an art-themed wedding.
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Concrete Construction
Concrete-inspired cakes are gaining popularity in the wedding world. The peach elements in this concrete cake paired with the singular floral accent featuring white, green, and burnt orange hues make this cake perfect for an early fall wedding. Plus, the narrow layers of this slim cake are a fresher take on square wedding confections.
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Pop of Color
For an unexpected wedding cake, incorporate a bright pop of color. This modest naked cake is decorated with different flowers in varying shades of purple and is even topped with a purple macaron. We especially love the wildflower-esque vibe of this cake, with wisps of blooms neatly lined around the bottom of the cake—perfect for a more intimate bohemian wedding.
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Level Up
Pile on the tiers! For a truly striking contemporary cake, ask your baker to make yours tall and multi-leveled. This concrete-inspired, oatmeal-hued cake features four tiers in varying heights, including a slender top tier, and is ornamented with large wildflowers in deep reds and violets and cascading vines. We can imagine this floral masterpiece at a garden wedding in the fall.
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Metallic Masterpiece
Elevate a simple square cake by decorating the edges with metallic piping for a gilded effect. This small two-tiered cake is edged with rose gold metallic frosting, while its topper, a combination of leaves, is also frosted in metallic rose gold. It's such an easy way to make a saccharine confection much more elegant.
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Acrylic Stack
To add a play on dimensions and make your cake look much more majestic, include an acrylic or lucite stacker as an additional tier. This cake, decorated with blush pink roses, features one acrylic stacker. It includes even more lucite elements with hand-painted acrylic accents.
Fill lucite stackers with flowers for an ultra-romantic, ultra-feminine cake.
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Lovely Lace
One way to tie the elements of your wedding together is to match your cake to your dress. If you're walking down the aisle in an intricately embroidered dress, why not pattern your cake after it? This elegant all-white cake, inspired by the bridal gown's floral embroidery pattern, features embossed metallic leaves and exquisite sugar flowers.
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Watercolor Floral
Watercolor adds a certain whimsy to any confection. This three-tiered cake features watercolor brush strokes in bright pastel hues of oranges, pinks, and lilacs that stand out against the backdrop of an all-white canvas. It feels airy, light, and playful—perfect for a spring wedding. We especially love the decadent roses and orchids as toppers.
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Naked With Berries
Naked cakes feel extra contemporary and are a fresh take on the square wedding cake. This three-tiered white cake looks especially mouthwatering when contrasted with the dramatic and rich colors and textures of deep blueberries and red wildflower accents. We recommend this for a fall wedding.
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Sugar Flowers
Make your square wedding cake more interesting by playing with tier placement. The three tiers on this cake seem all out of alignment but actually add an angular dimension to a square cake. Decorated with sophisticated white sugar flowers and lined with silver ribbon piping, this cake is an elegant, geometric choice perfect for a more traditional wedding.
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Dark Base
For an edgier cake, consider a darker base like navy or black. This navy cake, served at a wedding where the bride wore the same hue, is a modern masterpiece featuring white paint strokes.
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Fun With Flavors
One way to make your square wedding cake more unique is to forgo traditional flavors. This simple, single-tier cake is a meringue and berry cake topped with dripping fondant and gorgeous blueberries, blackberries, and mini meringues.
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Green With Envy
This gorgeous emerald green cake features two tiers separated by a cylindrical stacker surrounded by white flowers. The top layer, in a lighter emerald hue, features gilded edges while the darker bottom tier features gold constellation accents, perfect for celestial-inspired brides who love all things astrology.
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