Please, have a slice of….pie?

As weddings continue to become more personalized, cakes have not been left alone. No, dear readers, cakes have, in fact, come under the knife during wedding planning.

Don’t despair dessert lovers. Even though a traditional wedding cake has sometimes been given the axe, the idea of an after-dinner dessert has uniformly been upheld. So, even though couples sometimes forgo the multi-tiered confection that is a traditional wedding cake, guests are always provided with something sweet to cap-off their meals.

What couples have chosen in lieu of a cake, however, has surprised (and delighted!) us:

Dessert tables: holding everything from éclairs, brownies, and black-and-white cookies, to mini-napoleons and small pots de crème, dessert tables are designed to give guests a wide (if not downright huge!) variety of choices to select from to satisfy their sweet tooth. A dessert table allows couples to choose literally dozens of their favorite desserts, but also runs the risks of having a heftier impact on a budget. The variety of desserts to prepare and the need to accommodate all guests with dessert options can make a dessert table expensive.

Candy bars: are you a chocolate-covered pretzel, Mike and Ike, gumdrop, or gummy bear lover? If so, a candy bar might just be up your (sugar-coated) alley. Couples who love over-the-counter candies may gravitate towards a candy bar, in which numerous candies are offered side-by-side in separate containers. Guests are usually allowed to fill up individual bags with their choices, to either munch on during the festivities or snack on later at home. Couples love being able to stock a bar with their favorite candies, but m ay be surprised at how much the containers holding those candies actually cost.

Pies: out with the cake and in with pies, some couples are shouting. Couples having outdoor weddings or weddings during the summer months have been opting for fruit-filled pies instead of cake. We’ve seen one flavor offered and served (such as apple) as well as multiple pie flavors offered and guests being allowed to choose their favorite. Pies are a favorite among couples marrying over one of the major summer holiday weekends, such as the Fourth of July. Surprisingly, despite their being more pies to make, pies often have a similar cost to cakes, mainly because they require less decoration.

Cupcakes: we’ve seen them both stacked to resemble a cake and laid out on long tables (a la dessert table style), but regardless of presentation, cupcakes are a delicious and comfortable alternative to a traditional wedding cake. Cupcakes don’t need to be cut and allow couples to serve multiple flavors, but aren’t so far from a wedding cake that they put conventional-leaning guests’ (gramdma?) noses out of joint at the lack of a cake. Cupcakes do, however, require a little more work on the baker’s part, just because there is numerically more cakes to decorate.

Whatever you choose, remember that cutting the cake can be a fun tradition – and a tradition that you family members may insist on seeing occur. Therefore, even if you choose a non-traditional dessert, you might consider engaging in the “cutting of the pies” or having a small, 3-4 slice mini-cake available to be cut.