Best of 2022: Wedding Cakes & Drinks

From the initial cheers to cutting the cake, food and drink are major part of a wedding celebration. This year, couples expressed their individual styles through their wedding cakes and drinks, resulting in some truly amazing (and amazingly delicious) displays! 

We served up lots of inspiration below in our editor’s picks for Best of 2022 Wedding Cakes & Drinks, and you voted for your favorite in our Readers Choice Awards – scroll to see the winner!

Wildflower Wonder (Readers Choice Award Winner)

Pressed flower cakes had a moment in 2022, and this one by Blue House Bakeshop is one of my favorites. Not only is it stunning, but it matches the bride’s floral wedding gown!

Photographer: Rodeo & Co

Something Blue 

This 3-tier cake by Cronin Cakes  boasts a variety of textures with small sugar flowers, real flowers from Tipsy Tulip Designs, rustic buttercream edges, and a soft blue ribbon. It’s elegant, sweet, and the perfect addition for a spring wedding!
 

Flying (Sugar) High 

This 3-tier butterfly cake made by The Goose Chase Cake Design is so unique! It rises above the display of equally unique meringue mushrooms, arranged on wood tree cookies and decorated with twinkle lights. The overall design is whimsical, magical, and woodland chic! 

Raise the Bar

A bar that doubles as decor? Yep! VT Mobile Spirits converted an antique horse trailer into a fully mobile event bar, and I love the look in this vintage wedding set up! 

Photo: KLenhart Photography

 
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BEST OF 2021: DETAILS & DESIGN

From traditional and elegant to boho and casual, a couple’s style informs each design choice and detail on their wedding day. Here are a few of our favorite details and designs from 2021 Vermont weddings.

Love this post? We’re sharing our “semi finalist” picks on Instagram. Go check it out for even more inspiration!

Fresh & Floral

As a nod to the groom’s Georgia roots, Lindsey added whole and halved peaches into Clayton Floral’s amazing green garlands (also peep that archway installation – it’s UNBELIEVABLE), and painted custom place cards, menus and table numbers to include peaches as well. This Maquam Barn wedding is definitely a highlight of the year. (Photo: Julia Luckett Photography)

(Read the full wedding story)

The Bold & Beautiful

This “camp” inspired lakeside wedding designed by I Dews Design & Events was equal parts fun, beautiful, and sentimental. Their wedding incorporated nods to their family, including the groom’s grandfather’s UVM beer stein in their tablescapes.  (Photo: Obsidian)

A table full of wedding cakes

A Celebration of Cakes

Why have one cake when you can have a whole table of them? We love this display of multiple cakes (we especially love the gold brushstroke design) by The Goose Chase Cake Designs. It creates a huge visual impact and provides a variety of flavor options for guests! (Photo: Dear Edith & Lily)

Fresh & Festive

The chandeliers, the drapery, the neon sign and the pink tufted chairs … we can’t get enough of this design by Jaclyn Watson Events. It’s classically beautiful, but with a bit of a fresh update! (Photo: Rodeo & Co)

Elegance Under the Tent

NJOY Weddings & Events created a timeless, romantic reception tent for this Hildene wedding. We especially love how the tent glows after dark from the strands of twinkling lights that highlight the tent’s drapes. Total modern romance! (Photo: Corinne Parker)

A place card for wedding with custom logo with a heart for a Vermont wedding

Love-Inspired Logo

This couple, both graphic designers, designed their own (super cool) wedding logo, and made these candles – holders and all – as gifts for all their guests. (Photo: K Lenhart Photography)

A Stand Out Seating Chart

This seating chart floral display by Nectar and Root is one of the most unique, lovely design choices we’ve seen this year. It’s a small sample of the gorgeousness that is this wedding by Lindsey Leichthammer Events at the Inn at Grace Farm is gorgeous. (Photo: Jenna Brisson Photography)

(Read the full wedding story)

 

Love Notes

The bride, a teacher, asked her students to write down what love and marriage mean to them. The resulting cards are sweet, adorable, and unique additions to each table. (Photo: Love Wins Photography)

Dinner table set for outdoor wedding with bright pink flowers down the center

Dinner Party Goals

This al fresco dinner party at The Grafton Inn is stunning; we love the bright florals and lanterns down the center of the table. It’s casually elegant, and oh-so-fun.  (Photo: Loveland Creative)

 
Vermont wedding barn with greenery drapery

Paradise Found

We love how The Linen Shop’s neutral table liners show off the long farmhouse tables and lay the perfect backdrop for the lush greenery. Topped off with oodles of greenery and twinkling lights, and we feel like we’re in a garden paradise! (Photo: Cassi Claire)

 

A DIY Dream

Both wedding filmmaker Madison Anne Studio and photographer Juniper Studios highlighted this gorgeous boho wedding. The bride handmade many of the decor pieces, including the incredible crochet ceremony backdrop.

 
 

Thank you to everyone who submitted for the Best of 2021 series! Don’t forget to check out our “semi finalists” on Instagram, and sign up for our newsletter to get each Best of post emailed to you weekly this month!

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Quick recap: what is Vermont Weddings Best of 2021 Series?

A little backstory if you’re unfamiliar: we started the Best of series last year (2020) to highlight some of the amazing work by the talented teams in the Vermont wedding industry. It’s an opportunity to both celebrate a year’s worth of weddings and inspire couples who are planning a future Vermont wedding. (A quick note on the word “best”: the intention isn’t to make this a competition between weddings, but to share a small, but representative, sample of the weddings in Vermont this year.  To that end, please know that we love each and every wedding that was submitted, and the final picks are carefully chosen based on a variety of factors to create a compelling series.)

Here’s what you can expect:

All December, we’ll be rolling out inspiring stories in various categories:

Plus, because the submissions were just THAT good, we’re sharing our “semi finalist” picks for each category on Instagram. That means you’ll want to follow us to see even more highlights, and come back to the blog each week to see the “best” picks in each category.

We recommend signing up for our newsletter – we’ll send you an email each week with the highlights so you won’t miss a thing. (Going forward we only send 1 – 2 emails a month.)

THIS COUPLE CELEBRATED THEIR FIRST DANCE IN SKI BOOTS

Is there anything more Vermont than rocking ski boots for your first dance?! Emily and John took their first spin as husband and wife at Mad River Glen rocking their boots after an intimate ceremony at The Barn at Farmhouse Flowers

Family Focussed Wedding Details

The couple says their family and friends played a big role in their celebration from near and afar. John’s grandmother’s antique rugs adorned their ceremony stage; a cousin organized the floral design; parents set up the venue and prepped mouth-watering charcuterie boards; a dear friend even officiated the wedding via Zoom! 

Post Wedding Stowe Hike

A few days after their wedding, Emily and John planned a celebratory hike up the Stowe Pinnacle trail with a bottle of champagne to pop at the peak. “We wanted to feature hiking boots and puffy coats in our wedding photos because of our passion for the outdoors,” says Emily. Check out their full gallery below! 

White couple kissing on mountain top in Vermont

More Real Vermont Wedding Inspiration

Be sure to check out more posts of our real Vermont wedding posts here.

Wedding Venue: FARMHOUSE FLOWERS VT | Floral Design: A SCHOOLHOUSE GARDEN | Wedding Cake: THE GOOSE CHASE CAKE DESIGN | Photographer: GOLD WING PHOTOGRAPHY