Wedding Traditions 101: What is the origin and history of the wedding cake?

​Cake has been a part of wedding celebrations since the Roman Empire.  Back then, there wasn't even icing, and the common tradition was for the groom to break the bread over the top of the bride's head, to signify his dominance over her!

Though times have changed, certain traditions involving the wedding cake remain.  Having cake or even pie at a wedding was often a tradition for the bride alone, where she would cut the cake herself and serve the guests.  Cakes originated as single-tiered, though in royal or noble families, multi-layered cakes would be assembled to show the wealth of the couple getting married.  To support the upper levels of the cake, small pillars were used, and bakers began creating harder, more stable icing.  This naturally, became more difficult to cut, and thus, the tradition began where the man assists his bride in the cutting of the cake!
 
Upon cutting the first piece of wedding cake, it is a common tradition to also have the bride and groom feed each other the first bite.  This is symbolic of the couple's vow to provide for each other.
Wedding cakes are traditionally white in color.  This tradition also comes out of necessity rather than having a true symbolic meaning.  Since it was difficult to acquire ingredients needed to make cake, and especially icing, purified sugar was used...The more white the icing, the more wealth the family was perceived to have, since it was made of better purified sugar.