KOVELS: ANTIQUES & COLLECTING

At most American weddings, you can expect to see a wedding cake, usually covered in white frosting and often topped by bride and groom figures made of china, plastic, composition or even molded sugar.

When dinner ends, the cake is cut and the bride and groom feed a slice to each other. A 2009 wedding might have a pile of cupcakes instead of a cake — the start of a new tradition.

The custom of a wedding cake began in ancient Rome as a loaf of wheat or barley cake (bread). The bride and groom ate a bite of the cake, then the groom broke the cake over the bride's head. By the 1700s, a sweet cake with soft white icing was popular. In 1840, Queen Victoria's wedding cake was covered with a stiff white icing that's still called "royal icing." The queen's cake was made in layers, so that became the fashion.

By the 1890s, the "cake topper" had also become fashionable for elaborate weddings. It could be a bell or initials or a cupid or a bride and groom. In the 1920s, cake toppers became more common, and the Sears catalog included a page of toppers. During World War II, wedding cakes often had grooms dressed in uniform as toppers. But it was the 1950s that made a topper almost a requirement on a wedding cake. Grooms might be in top hat and tails, and brides followed the wedding-dress fashions of the day.

This bisque wedding cake topper is 7 inches high, taller than most. It was made about 1920 by Hertwig and Co., a German firm that also made dolls and dishes. Theriault's of Annapolis, Md., auctioned it last summer for $504. Today you can find humorous toppers, like a groom carrying golf clubs. The figures represent all races. Collectors began to buy all sorts of weddingrelated pieces in the 1970s. There were dealers who specialized in old wedding pictures, dresses, veils, cake toppers, invitations and other memorabilia. Many brides use vintage toppers, but few toppers are found that are more than 100 years old.