Wedding Cake After a Year

My 1st wedding, we kept it, never ate it. My fiance and I have decided against it and instead we're gonna order a cake from our baker every year. No one wants year old cake.

I know several people who did this and all said the cake was inedible. A few even got food poisoning.


The saving the cake tradition comes from the days when fruitcake was the only flavor option. Yes the same one that is served at Christmas that no one likes. Modern sponge cake and buttercream recipes are not made to be frozen for any period of time, even a few days.

View Quoted Comment I just heard that all grocery store bakeries receive their cakes frozen though? I think they are fine frozen for a bit but idk about long term. My mom got married around 2010ish and saved hers. I know I ate some and middle school me liked it i think.

I would ask your baker. I believe mine can do this because their cakes are all vegan, but it may depend.

View Quoted Comment Some do, some don’t. The grocery store cakes I’ve had (when I worked at them and was a wedding guest where they were served) were all baked from mixes on site. They were a hit so there wasn’t any leftover.


I’ve had many frozen cakes when I was younger that came from grocery stores (served at church during coffee hour) that were frozen only over the weekend and they were all dry and lost flavor when served. Maybe they have improved their formula since then. But it’s not something I would personally take a risk doing.

My husband and I saved our cake and it tasted just fine. I only ate a bite, but my husband ate the remaining part of the cake over a course of several days.

I agree with Michelle, this tradition is a hangover from the days when the cakes were fruitcakes, and heavily laced with alcohol, meaning that preservation was a lot easier. Plus, the ingredients used to make the cakes - candied fruits, spices etc - were expensive, and so you would never just throw the cake out, you'd keep it and eat it. Originally, the idea was to keep the top layer to use as a cake at the Christening of your first child.

I will say though, that I LOVE christmas cake and christmas pudding, so I can't agree that no one likes it - that said, to me, it is a very seasonal cake which I totally associate with the holidays, not with weddings.

Either way, I wouldn't keep it for a full year!

My baker advises not to do this so much so that he told us if their couples contact them right before their one year anniversary, they make them a mini version of their wedding cake for free to take home & enjoy! That is what sold us haha.

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Awww, that is adorable! I love this!

Personally I would not touch anything that has been left in the freezer for a year, let alone cake. After that long in the freezer, most things are either freezer burned or just a miserable puddle.

As someone who bakes cakes regularly, yes many bakeries / bakers will freeze their cakes but there is a huge difference between a cake frozen straight after baking (to lock in moisture) for a brief period vs a decorated cake that was likely already out of the fridge for a few days and then frozen for a whole year.

I would suggest instead of freezing a whole tier, instead have your baker make you a mini version of your wedding cake in one year's time.

We did! And it was delicious.

But our bakery gave us a special anniversary cake, packed it specially, and then we added more packaging to it.

Our freezer is super small, though, so it was a bit of a pain to have it in there.

It HAS to be wrapped correctly, or it won't work.

We didn't have cake at our wedding, but my brother and sister in law wrapped their top tier. Apparently it was nasty. They ate a bite or two each and threw out the rest.

Our baker offered to re-do the the top tier of the wedding cake for no charge!

My wedding isn't til October but when my sister got married she did save it for a year and said it tasted better then the day of the wedding. I plan on saving mine in the freezer for a year. Our dad made her cake and is also making mine so idk If that makes a difference.

Our baker made us a fresh cake for our 1 year so we didn’t have to eat year old freezer burned cake.

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Same, our baker made us a new cake a year later that was included in the original cost

I don't plan on saving ours, I can't fathom keeping anything in my freezer for a year. I plan on just having our cake baker bake a small anniversary cake on the first anniversary

We did this (had our top tier professionally wrapped to save in the freezer), and I would not recommend it. We took it out after 3 months because we were running out of freezer space and it was not good. I can't imagine what it would have tasted like after a full year.

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Grocery store cakes are manufactured in controlled conditions and quickly frozen. A wedding cake sits out at room temperature and inevitably absorbs moisture over the course of the event.

Moisture + freezing = freezer burn

Grocery store cakes are also made with preservatives (which will prevent the growth of bacteria and mold) and stabilizers like cellulose or xanthan gum (which help the ingredients stay together). Your typical wedding cake from a baker will not be. They're making those cakes with good old fashioned butter, milk, eggs, and flour. There are no ingredients that help the cake maintain its integrity there.

To follow up directly to OP on this:

I don't recommend this for a multitude of reasons.

1. Bacteria and mold. A temperature of -80 degrees Fahrenheit is necessary to kill microbes. Your freezer does not get anywhere near that. A cake from a baker (not a mass-produced, manufactured cake like a grocery store sheet cake) does not have preservatives to kill or inhibit growth. Your cake will be exposed to all of the elements for contamination - sitting out at room temperature for the duration of your event, being cut into, and the human contact necessary to remove the top tier and package it. Buggies love all of this, and they also love the yummy food source (sugar), and they won't be killed by your 0 degree Fahrenheit freezer. They will sit in your cake and happily hibernate until you thaw your cake - and them.

2. Again, if not a mass-produced, manufactured cake, your cake will not contain the necessary stabilizers to actually withstand freezing for a year. Manufactured cakes have a variety of stabilizers (such as cellulose gums) that help all the ingredients stick together and stay there. A homemade cake doesn't. This is why your baker does not recommend it. She knows it's going to be garbage.

We didn't save ours. Our baker made us a small anniversary cake that was the same flavor as our "cutting" tier (it was our personal favorite, that's why we chose it as the one to feed to each other) for our one-year.