Royal wedding cakes through the ages that will make your jaws drop – including a 35-stone whopper

One of the cakes produced for the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as shown in a  hand-coloured lithograph. The cake was decorated with figures of the bride and groom in ancient Greek costume and ornamented with orange blossom and sprigs of myrtle. Looking over them is the figure of Britannia

A print of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on their wedding day in 1840

King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra married at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1863. The cake is elaborately iced and decorated with flowers. Two cakes were prepared as the couple’s guest list was so extensive they staged two wedding breakfasts

 King Edward VII, Victoria eldest son  and Queen Alexandra following their 1863 wedding  

Decorated with sculpted figurines and flowers, this architectural cake for the 1885 wedding of Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg  stood at six feet and weighed 20 stones

Princess Beatrice Mary Victoria, the daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885. Victoria only agreed to the marriage on condition that the couple remained living with her – which they did

The wedding cake for Princess Maud – daughter of Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife – and Charles Carnegie featured a prominent guardsman in a bearskin and, above, cherubs signifying love. A fountain of fresh flowers appears to burst from the top

Guests at Princess Maud’s 1923 wedding included her uncle King George V (centre) and his wife, Queen Mary of Teck (second from left)

A poster displaying the 10-foot high cake for the Duke of York’s wedding to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later George VI and Queen Elizabeth). The cake featured depictions of Windsor Castle and St George’s Chapel on the first tier and the Queen Mother’s childhood home, Glamis Castle. on the second. Strings of flowers dangled from top to bottom

A photograph taken on the wedding day of the Duke and Duchess of York, parents of Queen Elizabeth. Their intricate cake went on public on display in Reading

The Duke of Kent  had a cake similar to that of his older brother, the Duke of York, when he married Princess Marina in 1934. Standing at 9ft tall, a ladder was needed to decorate it

The fourth son of George V, Prince George of Kent married  Marina of Greece. Prince George, the Queen’s uncle, was killed in a military plane crash in 1942

Queen Elizabeth II’s four-tier cake was decorated with coats of arms belonging to both bride and groom.  Cherub figurines are scattered around the cake

The nine-foot high cake for The Queen and Prince Philip was baked by the firm of McVitie and Price, now known as McVitie’s. It was dubbed the ‘10,000 mile cake’ as it used ingredients from around the world including sugar from Australia 

Queen Elizabeth II with husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on their 1947 wedding day

Newlyweds Princess Grace and Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The cake behind them was topped with a musical box and concealed a cage containing two turtle doves –  released at the moment the groom cut through the icing

 Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier wave to onlookers on their wedding day

A specialist from Lyons Bakeries prepares the three-tier cake for Princess Margaret’s 1960 wedding. Decorative panels feature the English Rose and the princess’s coat of arms

Princess Margaret and her husband Antony Armstrong-Jones  – later Lord Snowdon – on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. It was the first royal wedding to be televised

A four-tiered cake for King Constantine II of Greece and his wedding to Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark in 1964

Princess Anne-Marie had just turned 18, Constantine was 23 when they married. He fled Greece following a military coup in 1967 and was formally deposed in 1973

Prince Harald of Norway had an eight-foot high cake when he married and Sonja Haraldsen in 1968. It reportedly contained a litre of cognac and 200 eggs

Crown Prince Harald and Sonja Haraldsen in Oslo’s Royal Palace after the ceremony

Anne and Mark Phillips’s five-tier fruit cake was soaked in brandy for four weeks and weighed  ten stones. It stood at five feet, six inches and was decorated with intricately iced monograms

Princess Anne and her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, laugh on the balcony after their wedding in 1973. Theirs was the first Royal wedding to be televised in colour

Charles and Diana’s fruitcake was made by the Royal Naval Cookery School at Chatham. It was five  feet high and weighed  more than 11 stones. A slice of the cake was put up for auction in 2021 and sold for £1,850

Charles and Diana had the eyes of 750 million people in 74 countries watching their big day

Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s cake was created by Navy chefs at Torpoint in Cornwall. Two were made in case disaster struck on the journey to Buckingham Palace

Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson  married at Westminster Abbey in July 1986,  just three months after their engagement had announced

Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones  chose a ten-foot chocolate cake for their wedding breakfast. It is said to have taken 515 hours to make

Prince Edward, King Charles’s youngest brother marries  Sophie Rhys-Jones at St George’s Chapel, Windsor in 1999

Prince Willem-Alexander, now King of the Netherlands, and bride Maxima Zorreguieta take a sword to their wedding cake, decorated with their monogram on each tier

Princess Badiya bint Hassan of Jordan and British groom Khaled Blair cut their intricately iced cake at their wedding in Amman, 2005

 Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden inspects the eleven tiers of her wedding case, each in the shape of a four-leaf clover for luck

Newlywed Victoria of Sweden and husband Prince Daniel, Duke of Vastergotland try the cake

The cake for the wedding of Catherine Middleton and Prince William comprised 17 fruit cakes, 12 of which formed the base. Decorated with  900 delicate sugar-paste flowers and an icing copy of the fabric from Kate’s veil, it took 50 chefs around five weeks to make

Prince William and his new wife Catherine emerge from Westminster Abbey to cheering 

Prince Albert II of Monaco wraps his arm around his new wife, Princess Charlene, as they cut their spectacular vanilla and redcurrant wedding cake 

Princess Sofia and Prince Carl Philip cut their unconventional cake in front of guests

Bride and groom leave their wedding ceremony at the Stockholm Royal Palace in 2015

Harry and Meghan had a lemon elderflower cake covered with buttercream and decorated with fresh spring flowers. British royals have normally chosen fruitcakes

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex wave from the Landau Carriage during their carriage procession in Windsor, 2018

Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank opted for a chocolate wedding cake decorated with sugared autumn leaves and ivy – perhaps a nod to her Ivy Cottage home in Kensington Palace

Jack Brooksbank and Princess Eugenie leave St George’s Chapel in October 2018 

Princess Iman of Jordan and Jameel Alexander Thermiotis wed on 12 March 2023 and are pictured here with their seven-layered cake, which featured elegant vine pattern detailing. They cut into the  cake with a sword