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• wedding cake
  wedding cake

  noun

  a white cake, traditionally in tiered layers, covered with white icing and decorated.
• wedding-cake
  wedding-cake

  adjective

  highly ornate or overly elaborate.

wedding cake

¹ American  

noun

• wedding cakes
  plural

1. a white cake, traditionally in tiered layers, covered with white icing and decorated.

2. (in England) a fruit cake, similar in appearance.

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wedding-cake ² American  

[wed-ing-kayk] / ˈwɛd ɪŋˌkeɪk /

adjective

1. highly ornate or overly elaborate.

   wedding-cake architecture.

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wedding cake British  

noun

1. a rich fruit cake, with one, two, or more tiers, covered with almond paste and decorated with royal icing, which is served at a wedding reception

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• wedding cakes
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of wedding cake¹

First recorded in 1640–50

Origin of wedding-cake²

First recorded in 1875–80

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wedding cake wedding-cake

Colleton’s 1820 Greek Revival courthouse is elegant like a wedding cake.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 24, 2026

"The chef had made a two-tier wedding cake, they decorated the garden, built a balloon arch," she said.

From BBC ● May 18, 2026

The two were deep in conversation about olive oil, wedding cake and other culinary matters, while nearby his co-star Lionel Boyce leaned in for a huddle with “The Studio” co-creator Seth Rogen.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026

The early embrace of sunshine as an antiseptic, formalized in New York’s wedding cake towers that were required to step back gradually from the street, soon morphed into a generalized opposition to tall buildings.

From Slate ● Jul. 23, 2025

It was like a wedding cake, made in three blindingly white tiers.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides

No. The Catholic priest who conducted our marriage preparation mentioned that the purpose of the wedding-cake cutting was to inaugurate the domestic life of the new couple.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 16, 2026

Not just standard wedding-cake topper, 1990s romantic-comedy love, but inclusive love.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 14, 2024

Geologists sort the waterfalls into two types: wedding-cake falls, which descend in multiple tiers, and bridal-veil falls, that plunge over a ledge into a pool.

From The Guardian ● May 3, 2016

But then, every once in a while, I’d be in Radcliffe Square and suddenly find myself taken aback at the glory of the place: the wedding-cake Camera.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2016

There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. Woodhouse would never believe it.

From "Emma" by Jane Austen

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