The wedding cake…guests gravitate right to it, taking photos of its grandeur, and counting the minutes until they get to taste it. Brides say that when they walked into their receptions, their cakes take their breath away…

Some wedding cakes are decorated so intricately, with hundreds of hours put into icing elaborate incarnations of the bride’s wedding dress lace, or thousands of iridescent icing ‘pearls,’ that you almost don’t want to eat it [oh, but just try to stay away! It's impossible!]

Cake artistry is one of the most glamorous elements of wedding planning, and couples pore over the images of celebrity cake-bakers’ masterpieces, literally drooling over the intricacy of decorative sugar embellishments. Tiny anemones are hand-crafted from fondant or sugar paste, and crystals and rhinestones adorn ribbon-wraps on each layer of the cake. Even sparkling crystal brooches are affixed to the front ribbon wrap, presenting the cake like a diamond-studded present.

Brides and grooms who hold it as a top priority to design a wedding cake that’s a work of art will surely devote a larger chunk of their budgets to this visual highlight of their day, often scaling back on their invitation design or favor choices to allow them more freedom to spend thousands on their ultra-impressive cakes.

But there’s a new trend happening in wedding cake world: choosing simple, understated accents on an elegantly-simple frosted cake. Gone are the lace icing designs, the anemones, the bling. Instead, the cake stands in its layered glory — square shapes are the hot trend now — accented by just a few frosting roses and stick-ins that match the theme.

On the cake above, a half dozen silk butterflies purchased at the craft store made the bride’s dream come true for her spring wedding, and the $12 pricetag for those accents were a far cry from the $1,200 that might be charged for ultra-detailed hand-crafted cake accent artistry.

Here are some ways to decorate your cake with simplicity of design, creating a gorgeous wedding cake that belies its inexpensive pricetag:

1. Wrap the bottom of each layer in a colorful silk ribbon, to coordinate with the wedding decor.

2. As you see in the image above, have floral pieces set behind the cake, such as on a fireplace mantel, to make those simple frosting roses really ‘pop.’

3. Rather than place the bridesmaids’ bouquets spaced-apart around the cake, bunch two together in front, then place one on one side and one on the other for a floral design that looks more expensive than it is.

4. Surround the simply-designed cake with a dozen or so clear or frosted glass votive holders and votives that match the color of the cake, or of the frosting rose color. If the cake is square, choose quare votives. If the cake is round, choose round ones.

5. Instead of covering the cake with a cascade of fresh flowers, pop in one or two full, bloomed roses per cake layer, as you see above.

Yes, intricate frosting accents do cost extra due to the amount of labor it takes for the baker’s team to create, but the #1 most affordable cake piping accent is little icing pearls. Talk with your cake designer about the ways to achieve that design with simplicity in mind, such as spacing out the ‘pearls’ or just icing-dotting the bottom and top layers.