Taking on the Vegetable Trend and Taking it Too Far....? Sprouts on a Wedding Cake Anyone?
- Imogen
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Here at Sugar Buttons, I love interesting new ideas, especially those that bring a little touch of nature and colour to the wedding world. I’ve been loving the recent trend of integrating not just fruit, but vegetables too into wedding décor, as actual statement elements. Who has seen that absolutely banging tomato and chilli inspired scheme from Synched Events and Dear Luna Florals for Liv and Ben from Liv-vid? A full on vision in red.
It got me thinking: could we take this lovely trend... and perhaps push it a little too far?
The Turnip Revelation (Yes, Really!)
Since I’m already happily married (23 years and counting) and not planning any big parties anytime soon, the only real chance I get to unleash my wild design ideas is by being my own client. Enter: The Most Unusual Wedding Fair at Godwick
I use this fair as my perfect excuse to go a bit rogue. I needed a vegetable that had great colour and impact, and that hadn't been done to death on Pinterest.
Then, it hit me while driving to lunch on my birthday: Turnips!
Now, I must confess, I have never actually eaten a turnip. But the beautiful purple-to-white ombre gradient on the top? Stunning. And while I’m not the world's biggest purple fan, I am completely obsessed with greens—chartreuse, acid green, olive...This flash of inspiration made me grab a tiny piece of paper as soon as I'd parked the car, to scribble down my ideas, before tucking in to some tasty tapas (turnips not included).
When I started looking at turnip photos online (yes, that’s how I spent my birthday afternoon) I saw how a few pops of purple would perfectly contrast the layers of texture and green I was planning.
The Pitch, The Moodboards, & The Paper Goods
My stand at Godwick this year was a collaborative effort with my amazing friend Kate from I Like Pens Studio. We met for a coffee (7UP Free for me) and I hit her with my vegetable vision. Now, Kate and I usually share the same love for unusual schemes, but I think it took a solid few minutes of me explaining my full turnip vision before she agreed to let me railroad our stand scheme!
I went away and made a few moodboards to continue the hard sell, and Kate did her own research too. We wanted the graphic elements from her studio to be fully integrated with my edible offerings. We planned little seed packets to hold my turnip cookies as wedding favours, and—the pièce de résistance—a giant seed packet board to display a half cake. I decided to use this giant design not only for display but also to provide the cake flavour options.
We eventually moved slightly away from the purple turnip tones, adding a flash of pink with radishes as the focal image for the stationery. Kate created a gorgeous suite with hand-drawn illustrations and the most perfect olive green for my giant seed packet cake board. Kate also designed and created personalised fruit stickers to attach to pears to take the place of traditional place names. And as an additional favour idea, Kate designed the cutest little match boxes.
On the subject of favours, I also made and painted lots of little radish and turnip sugar cookies to be presented in Kates little seed packets.
The Veg Hunt & The Stacked Masterpiece
The focal point cake took the form of multiple stacked cylindrical tiers, iced in a textured, neutral buttercream. Keeping the cake colour subtle allowed the arrangement of shapes to be the feature, creating a perfect canvas for the main event: a massive, winding cascade of fruit, vegetables, and a few twisty stems of wisteria from my own garden.
To make the display happen, the week leading up to the fair involved me trekking to over twelve different supermarkets, farm shops, and markets in search of the perfect green-toned vegetables.
I was absolutely desperate to find Romanesco Cauliflowers—they are that perfect shade of chartreuse and so cool to look at with their Fibonacci structure. I drew a blank everywhere until I finally found three beauties on a market stall in North Walsham!
And Yes... The Sprouts!
Alongside the gorgeous Romanesco, turnips for colour, green pumpkin, grapes, and pears, I included some artfully placed Brussels Sprouts.
I know, I know. Most people only tolerate sprouts at Christmas dinner (if at all), but I eat them roasted year-round (shredded and roasted with a tahini and lemon dressing as a salad - mmmm). And for this scheme, they were the absolute perfect shade of green so I went for it.
For my half cake displayed on the giant seed packet board, I loved the simplicity: Pears, Radishes, and Sprouts sat on top of swirly ribbon piping and textured royal icing. Artfully placed little elements, and nothing else.
And here's an extra detail we loved: Though the display cake was made from polystyrene (no ones favourite flavour), I came up with some delicious autumnal flavours to add to the menu : Spiced Pear & Pistachio and Rich Chocolate Beetroot. I made them to be gluten-free (for me as I have coeliac disease) and vegan (for Kate), and making the cakes plant-based seemed only right considering our vegetable theme, and it gave us a chance to show off some truly unique seasonal offerings.
I absolutely loved how our scheme came together, and I have to send a huge shout-out to Kate for her collaboration and, more importantly, her trust in my slightly bonkers turnip vision! Her beautiful banner really finished off the display.
A special thank you also has to go to the wonderful Jess from jessicarenphotography who captured our stand so beautifully. Without professional photos like hers, these wild schemes would only live in our memory!
If you love the idea of incorporating unique, seasonal, and even slightly unusual elements into your wedding cake design—whether it’s a tiny turnip or a full-on fruit cascade—we should talk!
See more of Kate’s awesome stationery and signage here: https://www.ilikepensstudio.com/
PS...
I thought I'd share a bit of background about Kate and I and our creative process for this project. Here's a tiny snippet of one of our random Whatsapp conversations and how we planned our stand on a plastic table in my kitchen, with postcards an apple and a bowl. It worked perfectly for our ADHD visual learner brains!
As a fun finishing point for this blog I thought I'd call on AI to superimpose the beetroot hats onto a photo of myself and Kate. I know I can do it easily myself on photoshop or canva but I wanted the instant gratification of chucking it into ChatGPT. Now I don't use ChatGPT much other than to see what I'd look like if I were a man or how I'd look when I'm 80, but I was confident that it would easily perform the task of adding hats onto a photo.
The result, however was not as expected; for some reason, not only did it add the beetroot hat onto our heads, but it also decided to completely change our faces, bodies, my cakes and they ironed our linen table cover. So weird! But of course I kept it for your potential amusement...
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