This blog was updated in November 2024! Y’all have been loving this blog post but nobody told me about the typos and missing information?! Like where I wrote “put picture of the blackberries and dahlias cake here” instead of the actual photo?!
*cue embarrassment*
Okay but for real I have so much in my brain that I want to share about styling sugar flowers cascading down a wedding cake! It’s my favorite way to do a design and I really hope this info is super duper helpful for you.
And if you’re like, girl who are you?! Hi, I’m Kelsie Delisle! 👋🏼 Owner of Sugar Flowers by Kelsie Cakes, and creator of floral wedding cake toppers for elegant, luxurious weddings.
I work with bakers and brides, cake decorators and grooms, planners and party people!
I started my business in 2015, but I’ve been making cakes since 2010 professionally (and before that, I made my first wedding cake as a high school sophomore).
If you have any questions though, you better pop into my inbox or my DMs to ask me! That’s what I’m here for!
Okay intro over, here’s the blog:
One of the more popular cake designs is a flowing sugar flower cascade adorning a tall wedding cake. It’s romantic, elegant, botanical, timeless.
But it’s not the easiest design, especially if you’re new to styling with sugar flowers!
Even if you’re not ordering Sugar Flowers from me, these tips will help you figure out in advance how many flowers you’ll need for your cascade of flowers.
Sugar Flowers and fresh flowers may look similar, but they don’t behave the same way on a cake.
Fresh flowers are “squishier,” so you’ll need to use more flowers than you would with Sugar Flowers.
The first thing to consider is the shape of the cascade.
Cascade Shapes:
- Circling the cake in flowers 360º
- A straight line going diagonally from the top of the cake to the bottom
- A snaking cascade along the front
- A cascade that only across down the middle tiers
Other questions to ask:
Before designing the cascade, make sure you consider these options:
Do you want the top of the cake fully covered or do you want to leave room for a cake topper?
Going for a maximalist look? You’ll need plenty of flowers to achieve that filled-to-the-brim effect, but we have plenty in stock!
But if you’re going for a minimalist look, you won’t need quite as many, and you can space them out a little bit more.
I like to do graduated sizes of flowers for the cascades: the biggest flowers go at the bottom, with some small-to-medium sizes to fill in the gaps. And the smallest flowers at the top with maybe a mid-sized flower or two to break up any monotony.
And for a cascade, I almost always recommend adding leaves to make things look more natural! And since the leaves are smaller the flowers, you can easily tuck the little leaves (or even a vine/stem!) into any gaps.
And adding leaves definitely makes things look more natural.
For an organic look, I’ll wire the leaves together to create a stem or branch like in the photo!
For a more traditional or understated look, I’ll insert individual leaves into the cake, like these peony leaves!
Pro tip: if you don’t want to use sugar leaves, you can use edible leaves, like mint or rosemary, instead. This can help save money (depending on the season) while still keeping your decor food-safe. And if you grow your own organic herbs, then it’s even cheaper.
How many flowers will I need for my Sugar Flower Cascade?
How big is the cake as a whole? This is what will determine the final size of your Sugar Flower Cascade.
For example, let’s look at a four tier cake with 6” 8” 10” and 12” layers, each one is between 4” and 5” high.
- The 6” is the smallest so I’d do a max of 3 small flowers on the side of the cakeThe 8” and 10” will have a mix of small and medium so I’ll aim for 4-5 for each tier.
- And the 12” is the largest, and I want to finish things off with a nice big bundle at the bottom, so I’d start with 5-6 medium or large flowers and then fill it in with another 4 or 5 smaller flowers. So that’s around 20+ for a nice full cascade.
- If I really want to create a big statement, I’ll add more flowers to the top of the 6” cake, probably 3 or 4 small to medium flowers just on the edge of the cake.
For the example cakes I show below, I’ll tell you the size of the tiers in shorthand like this: 6/8/10/12 but it just means the same thing that I explained in the bullet points above!
Want a more Minimalist cascade?
For a 3 or 4 tier cake, a cascade with around 8 or 9 flowers is perfect, especially if you don’t use flowers that are too small. The “Classic Cascade” below is a great example of this!
Oh, and the easiest way to figure it out? Buy a bundle that’s already designed for you! It takes out any guesswork of how many flowers you’ll need 🙂
But for the Sugar Flower DIY-ers out there, I don’t want to leave you without any resources! Here are some examples of a Sugar Flower cascade or two that I’ve made in the past, and a brief description of how many & what size flowers you’ll need:
Example Cascades:
Diagonal cascade across the middle tiers.
This is a four-tier wedding cake 6/8/10/12
The focal flower is right in the middle between the 8″ and 10″ tiers– because it was such a big flower, it has a really strong, long floral wire stem which is placed at an angle toward the center of 10″ cake.
It’s really important to make sure your design is stable! The second photo shows how the big flower is resting on the ledge of the tier.
This cascade on a 4 tier cake contains:
- 2 large flowers (in this case: peony and rose)
- 2 medium flowers (in this case: dahlia and peony)
- 5 small flowers (in this case: roses and peonies)
- assorted leaves and berries for filler (rose and peony and eucalyptus leaves and snowberries)
A full cascade diagonally across 2-tier cake.
This style arrangement works perfect for a 2 tier cake but can also be stretched across a 3 tier cake.
If you’re using a 6/8/10 cake, then place the focal flower (large dahlia) on the 8″ cake and style around that flower! The cake in the photo is a 6/8 and each tier is about 5″ tall.
This cascade on a 2-tier cake contains:
- 1 large flower (dahlia)
- 4 medium flowers (anemones and roses)
- 2 small flowers (dahlia buds)
- assorted leaves and berries and filler flowers (rose buds, fern leaves, pinecones, hypericum berries)
Click Here to Order This Design!
Minimalist three tier diagonal cascade.
This cascade is on a smaller textured buttercream wedding cake. It doesn’t have too many elements so each flower and leaf stands out! The blackberries add a nice contrast and textural elements.
I believe the tiers on this cake are 5/7/9.
This cascade on a 3 tier cake contains:
- 4 medium flowers (open rose, dahlia, burgundy roses)
- 1 small flower (white rose)
- assorted leaves and berries (eucalyptus, pinecones, blackberries)
Super Minimal! — Blushing Bride Design
This is a 3 tier cake with 6/8/10 4″ tall tiers. All the flowers are the same: blush and gold open roses in varying sizes and paired with a set of small and a set of large gold-painted rose leaves.
This cascade on a 3 tier cake contains:
- 1 small flower
- 1 medium flower
- 1 large flower
- assorted leaves
Click Here to Order This Design!
Maximalist cascade on three-tier cake
Unlike the previous cake, which had smaller tiers to give the cake a more vertical look, this cake has larger tiers (to feed more guests!) so more flowers can fit to give a more maximalist vibe!
I believe the tiers on this cake are 7/12/13
This cascade on a 3 tier cake contains:
- 3 large flowers (peonies and dahlia)
- 2 medium flowers (anemones)
- 3 small flowers (ranunculus)
- assorted leaves buds and berries (dahlia buds, hypericum berries, eucalyptus leaves, peony buds)
Single Flower Cascade with Gold: The Classic Cascade Bundle (Gold Trim Version)
I wanted to call this one a ‘monocolor’ design but the heavy emphasis on the gold really means it’s duo-color more than mono-color! (But I also offer all white open rose bundles)
So can we say “monoflower” instead?!
The cascade is concentrated on the top 3 tiers to really give the flowers the spotlight! You could also center it more by putting the focal flowers(an extra large and a large open rose) on the 10″ cake instead of the 8″ cake like in the photo.
This a 6/8/10/12 wedding cake and each tier is about 5″ tall.
This cascade on a 4-tier cake contains:
- 4x small flowers (white/gold open roses)
- 1x medium flower (white/gold open roses)
- 2x large flowers (white/gold open roses)
- 1x extra large flower (white/gold open roses)
Click Here to Order This Design!
The Big One: Swirled Cascade
This is a 5 tier cake! 6/8/10/12/14 with two cascades going down opposite ends of the cake.
If you can believe it… I don’t know how many flowers are in this design! 🫣
I’m going to write an entire blog post dedicated to the design process for this one!
I used armatures to style the sugar flowers, and then stuck those big ol’ wires into the cake (it’s a dummy cake, by the way! I’m not sure if a real cake would be able to hold the weight… I need to do more experimenting!)
Needless to say, this is the biggest cascade I’ve ever done by myself. I made this cake for a photoshoot! The colors and texture and movement and flowers of this cake make me so happy. I really want to share more behind the scenes of how it came together, but in the mean time, if you’re looking for something similar, hit me up for a custom order!
I’m also working on a video version of this blog post! It’s taking me a little bit of time to edit out all the boring parts, but I’ll be sending that video out to all my e-mail subscribers as soon as it’s available. If you’d like to be updated when the video is released, you can sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of this blog!
