Cake cutting before or after dinner?

... generally after, when people would... eat cake. I mean, I like my dessert first, but...

I plan to do mine after. I figure most people have dessert after dinner.

I've seen them done both ways...cut before so that the servers can take the cake to the back and continue cutting it and prepare for serving OR I've seen it done after....wanting see the pros and cons of both.

We did ours after.

RIGHT NOW.... the DJ has our cake cutting first thing after our grand entrance. This may get changed though. I think it's weird to have the cake cutting so early (although it makes sense to do it before supper so the staff can have it ready right after the meal is finished) and in order to get everything in, we might switch it to be last and have the first dance immediately after the grand entrance. My photographer wants to cut an hour from my contract and that's going to make it tight getting everything photographed that should be.

Before. We will enter. First dance. Cut cake. Dinner. Parent dances while cake is served. Speeches while they eat cake. Then party.

They need time to slice and serve it so it'll be ready after dinner. And stopping the party later for it usually means most people won't see it anyways and the party gets stopped.

I also think it's weird; it literally takes 10 minutes to plate cake. Doing it first is like, "Hello/goodbye"....

12:00 pm – Florist will arrive to setup

2:00 pm – Hair & Makeup/Getting ready

5:00 pm – Photographer will take some photos

5:30/6:00 pm – DJ/Caterer/Baker begin arriving for setup

6:30 pm – Guest begin to arrive

7:00 pm – Ceremony starts

7:30 pm – Ceremony ends

7:30 pm – Photographer photos

7:30 pm – Food/Drinks open

8:12 pm - Sunset

8:15 pm – First Dance

8:25 pm – Toasts

9:00 pm – Father/Daughter Dance

9:05 pm – Mother/Son Dances (2)

9:20 pm – Garter/Bouquet Tosses

9:30 pm – Cake cutting

10:30-11:00 pm – Sparkler send off

Here's the timeline I created for ours. I read somewhere that once the cake is cut, that's when it's a cue that it's okay for guests to leave. Dk if that's true or not but that helped my decision on when to cut the cake.

I am doing it an hour and a half or so before reception end. I always thought the cake-cutting signaled to the guests that it was okay to leave.

Older guests see it as time to leave. Now a days the bride and groom don't leave early and people stay all night. I'd be annoyed waiting until everyone us hammers 3 hours after dinner to even consider serving a cake.

We're likely doing right after we are introduced. I think it flows better, we walk in, straight to the cake table, cut, smash & then either first dance or toasts. Given that ppl haven't eaten dinner yet & the reception will have just started, I don't think ppl will think it's time to leave. About half of the weddings I've been to have cut the cake right away. But I can flow well if its right after dinner- I always miss it if it's any later than that though.

ETA: I'd add that it's being served right after dinner (we have a buffet) so that people are still seated & more likely to eat it (most the time I miss cake at weddings becaue I didnt know it was served since I was on the dance floor)

Buffet dinner here, so doing it before so people can grab dessert with the buffet and not go up again. Time is too precious! Two buffet weddings i have been to people grabbed dessert anyway before the couple "cut the cake" so it was a bit of a bummer to them.

I was having this same debate yesterday. Ultimately we settled on doing it after dinner. The last wedding I went to they did it before dinner as soon as they entered the reception. I wasn't too deep into wedding planning at that point so it seemed weird and out of order to me as a guest, but everything worked out fine. A few pros - cutters can be preparing cake to be served while you eat; if you only have photographer for a limited amount of time and want to get some shots of the cake cutting ceremony you may consider doing it early. We have the photographer for a little bit longer as well as having a few sheet cakes in addition to our tiered cake so for us it makes sense to wait until after but some of the cake can still be cut for guests to begin eating right after we do our cake cutting. Hope this helps! For me, I've found that guests probably won't really care or notice so I have to just make a decision and go with it so I can move on. Best of luck!

I've been to one wedding where they did it before. Honestly I hated it. It felt like they were just doing it for the photos and the guests weren't even really a part of it.

I'm sure it could be executed better but it does feel like you're rushing through the important stuff.

We are planning on cutting ours after dinner and right before all the dancing and stuff. Here's our timeline.

6:30:00 PM Guests sign "Guestbook"

6:45:00 PM Guests Seated for dinner

7:00:00 PM Bride & Groom & Bridal Party Entrance

7:10:00 PM First Guests table to buffet

7:40:00 PM Last Guests table to buffet

7:45:00 PM Toasts (4)

8:00:00 PM Bride & Groom Thank yous & Cake Cutting

8:05:00 PM Bride & Groom First Dance

8:10:00 PM Dancing!

11:25:00 PM Limo Arrives

11:30:00 PM Bride & Groom Send Off w/ Sparklers

11:45:00 PM Limo Returns for Bridal Party & Moms

12:15:00 PM All Guests Out

I am doing it right when we walk in and after our first dance, since we have a dessert bar people will be able to go up and take what they want. Plus i only have my photographer for 4 hrs so i will need her to be there to get those shots.

We will be cutting the cake before dinner, right after we are introduced. Because our dinner (where the cake will be) and the dancing are in separate areas, we didn't want people to have to come back upstairs just to see us cut the cake. Also, my videographer will only be there until 8, so I wanted him to capture that for us. If it wasn't for our time crunch and the set up of our venue, we would totally be cutting it later in the evening. I do think it's odd when we will be cutting it, but oh well!

We're cutting cake after dinner, we're serving cupcakes so serving won't be an issue. Even if we were doing regular cake I don't think we'd cut it early. It seems weird to me.

We cut it right after we did our entrance so it could be served immediately after dinner.

Haha. I'm walking to class right now and I've been awake for hours. Also, we still got plenty of time to make a timeline. Your photog needs to calm his tits.