Glass Adds Class to Cakes

Those funny little figurines that traditionally top wedding cakes are being toppled by trendy brides and grooms.

Blown-glass decorations, which range in design from the standard hearts, swans, bells and flowers to the more fanciful unicorns and hummingbirds, are taking their place.

“Everybody’s been saying that those plastic figures are old-fashioned and don’t look like them,” said Liane Schneider of the Reseda Bakery in Reseda. Even at an average of $30 to $40, “brides don’t mind paying more for the blown glass,” she said. “It’s classier, it’s nicer. You can keep it and put it in your china closet.”

Schneider said that part of the appeal has to do with the fact that many brides today are a little older.

“We used to get a lot of 18- and 19-year-old brides,” she said. “But today, brides are older and more sophisticated, and they prefer a simpler, more sophisticated topping. But even the younger brides are more sophisticated than they once were.”

The blown-glass decorations are so popular that Valley mothers and future sisters-in-law have been known to transport them on planes to out-of-town weddings, Schneider said.

For those who crave something a little fancier, the blown glass can be decorated with tiny lights that thread through and around the figurine. That, of course, requires two “aa” batteries--hidden under the wedding top’s plastic base.

“But that’s only for nighttime weddings,” Schneider said. “And most people are really surprised by that . . . I mean, lights on a cake top. Wouldn’t that surprise you?”