Butterfly wedding cake | Alessandro Isola

The wedding cake installation designed by Alessandro Isola takes inspiration from the elegant harmony and delicate movement of a butterfly wing.

The butterfly was a recurring theme through the wedding, from the invitation card to the fireworks display arranged in the shape of a pair of wings in the evening sky.

The concept was to create an installation which broke the stereotypical image of a wedding cake. Reinterpreting a traditional multilayer cake into a non-static, vertically standing installation.  At 230 cm in height the white aluminium structure is contoured in the form of a butterfly wing.

The front face of the wing was covered by 1400 fresh flowers in two shades, 600 pink carnations and 800 white carnations imported from Holland and cultivated in San Remo, Italy.

Carefully arranged to resemble the intricate pattern of a colourful butterfly wing. The floral composition was produced by 'Arabesque Decorazioni' in Padova, Italy. The floral wing was exposed and on view to the guests throughout the evening. Guests could admire the installation as a beautiful sculpture of flowers without realising that what they were in fact looking at what would become the cake.

The wing was subdivided in 8 individual sections all pivoting from one centre point. Through the movements and transparency of the dancers’ costume, a choreographed performance was composed around the vertically standing sculpture. The dancer appears to effortlessly open all the vertical sections of the sculpture one by one. The rotation of each section re-created a configuration mirroring the butterfly wing. Whilst the sections resembled an abstract form of a traditional multilayer cake. Creating an installation with 8 sections that each held a row of individual cakes. Decorated with chocolate butterfly wings created by 'Pasticceria il Calandrino' in Padova, Italy. The installation became a centre point for the guests to congregate. Admiring it from all angles, perceiving it differently according to a viewer’s perspective and collectively enjoying the individual cakes.

The moment in which the chrysalis becomes the winged butterfly, inspired the idea that a transformation should occur during the cutting of the cake ceremony.

“The objects and spaces I create are not always as they first seem. I love illusion. I resist convention and create wow-factor pieces and places that transform, reveal, change and surprise!”