Bridgerton-Inspired Wedding Cake

This Bridgerton-Inspired Wedding Cake is one of my all-time favorite wedding cakes. With abstract palette knife buttercream flowers in soft pastels and tiny pearls for a touch of timeless elegance, this wedding cake is the perfect picture of the whimsy and color of a fairy tale.

Bridgerton-Inspired Wedding Cake

Since I've only seen a couple of partial episodes of Bridgerton, I really didn't know where to start when the bride, Julia Rachel, told me she wanted a Bridgerton-inspired Wedding Cake.

My knowledge of the show pretty much consists of knowing one main character's name: Lady Whistledown. After the first time Julia Rachel and I talked, I was a little worried about having to imitate Victorian style cakes (not my forte) or something else from the Regency period. 

And then, after doing some research, I was praying she didn't want the cake texture or flavors to be from that time period... a fruit cake or a sponge cake recipe that I've never baked. Spoiler alert - she did not, thank God!

But once I'd seen the inspiration photos, I was immediately smitten with the idea. Her inspiration was more about the colors and florals and lavishness from Bridgerton than a specific cake style. And she loved the look of abstract buttercream flowers, so I was all in!

Since I have been making buttercream palette knife cakes for a while now, I knew this was a look I could do and do well. And the colors... gorgeous!

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Bridgerton Style Cakes

Julia Rachel specifically asked for pastel colors such as lavender and purple, pinks, peach, sage green, light blues, and pale yellow. She sent me photos of her bouquet inspiration, some other Bridgerton color inspiration, and we talked a few times about her vision and style. It was all so beautiful.

On the big day, when I arrived with the Bridgerton Wedding Cake, I was WOW'd by everything. The wedding venue is gorgeous already (I've delivered many cakes there already), but her choices of flowers and decor were so unique and beautiful. 

When I arrived at Dunleith Historic Inn (we call it "The Dunleith"), the first thing I saw was this wreath on the front door... the real flowers were stunning. 

Then I saw the the flowers in the adjacent room and eventually the bride as I was finishing up setting up the cake and her bridal gown and bridal bouquet were also just gorgeous! You can see a few of her photos here by Creek and Stone Fine Art by Brandi Price.

Bridgerton Wedding Cake Details

The cake was five tiers with the top three tiers being slightly taller for a dramatic effect. The flavors were alternating tiers. The top, middle and bottom of the cake were Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Buttercream. The other two tiers were White Almond Sour Cream Cake with Strawberry Filling and Vanilla Almond  Buttercream.

I covered the entire outside of the cake with vanilla buttercream, then also used it to decorate and "paint" the flowers. 

So the cake will be as fresh tasting as possible, I baked all of these cakes on Thursday, then allowed them to cool and chill overnight. On Friday, I filled, frosted, and assembled the cakes, then chilled again.

When everything was completely cold, I got the tiers out of the refrigerator and decorated them Friday afternoon and evening. I should note that I was working with two separate assemblies - the bottom two tiers were already stacked and the top three tiers were already stacked.

On the wedding day, at the venue, I assembled the two parts then touched up the cake and added finishing touches. I initially thought there would be an artsy wedding cake topper added but I was mistaken and I'm glad I was. 

I didn't feel like this cake needed anything added to it - it was perfect as it was and I think even a casual cake topper might have drawn attention away from the details of the buttercream flowers.

The table was also covered with simple table linens - again, this allowed the cake to be the star of the show in this room.

Cake Decorating Tools

Here's a list of tools I used to make this cake. They are very basic and I'd venture to guess that most cake decorators already have most (if not all) of these tools on hand. 

• Palette Knife Set - mine is almost identical to this one but I bought mine at a local hobby store. I also like this set from Amazon because of the variety of sizes and shapes. Having different shapes and sizes allows you to create different petals and textures on your cake.
• Small Spatula - just your everyday cake decorating spatula. I love a small offset spatula and a small straight spatula.
• Paint brushes - any clean new synthetic brushes will work... just keep your paintbrusehs designated for cake work obviously. You wouldn't want to cross-contaminate with makeup brushes.
• Piping Bags - Every time I've done a palette painted cake, I've used a plain frosting bag and just snipped the end off (instead of using piping tips). So a few of these would be handy.
• Cookie sheet with lid (or a plate or whatever you like)... I shared my favorite cookie sheets here OR a bowl for each color of buttercream.
• Turntable - using a quality turntable will make this decorating technique so much easier and I think every baker needs one anyway 😉
• Viva Paper Towels - these help clean your tools between different frosting colors and/or keep your cake board clean. I also use them to smooth buttercream (see more in my book here: Cake Decorating for Beginners).
• Bubble Tea Straws (for assembly/stacking)
• Bench Scraper (to smooth the buttercream)
• Sugar Pearls
• Large Cake Lifter to move the top tiers onto the bottom tiers. You can see how I do that in this post where I stacked my tallest cake to date. 

​Love this cake? Check out my other Buttercream Palette Painted Cakes:

• Buttercream Palette Knife Painting Cake {Video!}
• Buttercream Magnolias Cake
• More Palette Painted Cakes
• Modern Gender Reveal Cake with Gold Leaf

See 21+ Luxury Wedding Cakes here!