Recently, I had the chance to visit with Houston floral designer Maggie Bailey of Bramble & Bee. Towards the end of our visit, the conversation somehow landed on wedding cake flowers which reminded me of all the emails I’ve received over the years asking about the safety of using certain flowers on cakes eaten by wedding or party guests. Maggie was kind enough to share some pointers with us on determining which flowers are safe to use as cake decorations, as well as her techniques for safe bloom placement…

From Maggie Bailey:

Many of the gorgeous cakes in recent weddings feature clusters of dainty blooms or cascades of dramatic roses! Fresh cut flowers for wedding cake décor has always been popular, but seems to be the norm as of late. To that end, here are some ideas for ensuring that the blooms you use and the way you use them are safe for party guests.

An important factor to consider is that the cut flowers we use for arranging were probably not grown with the intention of being eaten. Likely, there were chemicals used on and around the flowers to aid in various aspects of the growing process. If you’re able to source your flowers from organic growers, then you have one less thing to worry about, but the majority of floral wholesalers are sourcing from farms that do indeed use chemicals in fertilizers and pesticides. So, even if the flower is technically edible, it may not be safe to eat.

Here are some popular wedding flowers which are considered edible:

Common blooms that can be potentially poisonous when consumed are:

A few tips for flower placement: When designing for the top of the cake or between layers, consider using design trays. When sticking flowers directly into the cake, you can use floral tape to completely wrap the stems. Water tubes or straws (regular or smoothie/extra wide) are great for sticking into the cake and preventing the stems from coming into contact with the cake at all!

Thanks for you insights, Maggie! And thank you, Buttercup Bakery, for providing the sweet cake for Maggie’s tutorial images.

Please feel free to chime in and share your techniques and insights on this topic in the comment section. We love to hear from you! We can learn so much from one another.

Happy Weekend. xo

Click here to see some safe cake flowers in action!