Will Projection Mapping Become the Next Wedding Cake “Decoration” Trend? 

Over the past few days, I have seen several bits and pieces on the Interwebs—here and here and here, for starters—referring to the new wedding-cake “decoration” technology that Disney recently unveiled at their Fairy Tale Wedding Expo (after having patented it, of course).

It’s called projection mapping, which basically means that animated images are projected in light onto an all-white cake, which acts as a blank canvas-kinda projection “screen.” The rather mesmerizing result—however you might feel specifically about Disney images—is definitely ooh– and ahh-worthy:

We were wondering, though: Now that the technology is out there, is this something we’d start seeing as a cool new way for a couple to “decorate” their wedding cake?

Since it’s not, of course, the bakers who would be whipping up this overachieving light display, we checked in with lighting expert Brian Toner of Philly’s Eventions Productions to see what the deal would be if any old bride or groom wanted to design a light show on their wedding cake for decoration instead of layers of icing.

The answer? Yeah, in the real world, it takes a little more than Disney magic to make this happen. “The projector needs to be almost in front of the cake—not significantly above or below it—which, in a real-life wedding would be difficult,” he says. “It’s also so time consuming to program it—and it needs to be done onsite, with the real cake. I would want six to eight hours of time with the cake in the room completely set up to accomplish {the right effect}.”

So there we have it. Is it possible? Yes. But while for Disney, it might take just a quick sprinkling of fairy dust to make this happen, us folk who don’t live in the Magic Kingdom would have to have just a few more resources up our sleeves. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if there are some couples out there who’ll opt to go for broke.

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