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About this vendor
Your wedding cake should be remembered because it's beautiful and delicious—not because it's gluten-free.
At The Happy Tart, we create custom wedding cakes and desserts that allow every guest to celebrate together. Located in Falls Church, Virginia, we are a dedicated gluten-free bakery serving couples throughout Northern Virginia, Washington, DC, and Maryland. Every cake, cupcake, pastry, and dessert is made in our 100% gluten-free facility, making us a trusted choice for couples with celiac disease, gluten sensitivities, or guests with dietary restrictions.
Our goal is simple: create wedding desserts that feel special, personal, and worthy of your celebration.
Whether you're planning an intimate micro wedding, a garden-party reception, a modern downtown celebration, or a large wedding with hundreds of guests, our team works closely with you to design desserts that reflect your style and vision. From elegant buttercream finishes and vintage piping to fresh florals, textured designs, and custom details, each cake is thoughtfully crafted from scratch.
We offer everything from small cutting cakes and groom's cakes to multi-tier wedding cakes, dessert tables, cupcakes, macarons, petit fours, cookies, and other sweet treats. Couples often choose a display cake paired with additional sheet cakes or desserts to serve larger guest counts while maintaining the look they love.
Our flavors are just as important as our designs. We specialize in scratch-made cake layers, fillings, frostings, curds, jams, mousses, and buttercreams that are crafted to taste every bit as good as they look.
One of the most rewarding things we hear from couples is that their guests are surprised to learn the cake was gluten-free. Our desserts are designed to stand alongside any traditional bakery offering—because everyone deserves an incredible dessert experience on their wedding day.
Wedding cake tastings are available by appointment and include a guided consultation to discuss flavors, design inspiration, guest counts, venue logistics, and dessert options. We recommend reaching out as early as possible, particularly for peak wedding season dates.
At The Happy Tart, we know your wedding cake is more than dessert. It's part of your celebration, your photos, your traditions, and the memories you'll share with family and friends for years to come. We're delighted to play a small role in such an important day and look forward to helping create something beautiful for you and your guests.
Serving Northern Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, and destination celebrations throughout the Mid-Atlantic. 🍰✨
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Cakes & Desserts
- Cake Delivery & Setup
- Cake Tastings
- Cupcakes
- Groom's Cakes
- Other Desserts
Dietary Options
- Dairy Free
- Gluten Free
- Nut Free
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Reviews
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4.9
out of 5.019 reviews
Review photos
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I'm gluten free, and my husband and I originally planned on getting a small gluten free presentation cake and a large non-gluten free sheet cake for our wedding. After a tasting at...
the Happy Tart we were sold on going completely gluten free for our wedding cake. Kerrigan and team executed our vision perfectly, from the cake design to the three flavors and fillings we used for each tier. Not even exaggerating, our guests were shocked to learn that the cake was gluten free -- it was genuinely that good. We highly recommend the almond cake in particular!
I'll note that we had some trouble getting in contact with The Happy Tart after our initial tasting due to issues with their email inbox, which we chalked up to growing pains from the recent change in management. Hopefully they've worked out the kinks!
We ordered cake for our civil ceremony. I (the bride) have a dairy allergy to milk protein casein. My bestie has a gluten allergy. I wanted us to be able to enjoy the cake on this ...
special day, so I spent a day eating dairy-free gluten-free cupcakes from local bakeries. Happy Tart had the most delicious ones and I was super excited to learn that not only can this bakery create beautiful buttercream flowers, they could add the paint texture to the icing. My husband and I are both artists so it had a special meaning for us. I requested for a single-tier cake since there would be less than ten people at our ceremony. They were able to create the flowers I requested in the right colors: hydrangeas and sampaguita (Philippine flower similar to jasmine). We opted for simple chocolate and vanilla flavors for the cake and vanilla for the icing. All the guests loved the cake and no one could tell it was dairy-free or gluten-free. We both highly recommend Happy Tart!
Note: They are now located in Falls Church
The Happy Tart exceeded our expectations. The gluten free wedding cake was even better than the regular cakes we served to guests. It was delicious and the decoration was exactly w...
hat we had asked for with beautiful cascading roses. The buttercream frosting was amazing. Thank you so much for adding to our perfect day!
We ordered our wedding cake through The Happy Tart bakery, and it was absolutely stunning! It looked gorgeous, well beyond our hopes and dreams. And it was delicious, too! Our gues...
ts couldn't tell that it was gluten-free; many of them said it was the best wedding cake they'd ever had. There wasn't a single piece left at the end of the night! If you're looking for a beautiful, delicious gluten-free wedding cake, work with The Happy Tart -- we cannot recommend them highly enough!
The cake was absolutely delicious. No one would have realized it was gluten-free. It was decorated with beautiful edible flowers. The delivery was perfect. I really appreciated th...
e tasting we scheduled in advance, but that did make it difficult to narrow down the choices because we loved every single option! In the end, we chose different flavors for the layers: raspberry almond and lemon. They added the monogram we sent. I am so happy with the entire experience working with this vender as well as the end result. So many "Wow, this cake is amazing!" comments from guests.
We were so pleased with the desserts and cake we got from The Happy Tart! My mother-in-law is completely gluten intolerant and several other members of my husbands family are glute...
n sensitive so gluten free desserts were a must! I also don't like cake, so one large cake was not going to do. Instead we had one small cake in my husband's favorite flavors that functioned as our wedding cake but was really his cake and then the folks at the Happy Tart were able to make fruit tarts and mousse shots for the rest of the guests. I love fruit tarts and the ones they made were amazing! It was exactly what I wanted in desserts for my wedding, for the budget I had and COMPLETLY GLUTEN FREE. My guests raved about the desserts. Except for our immediately family, no one knew everything was gluten free and when I told some people that later they were astonished! Emma was amazing to work with, there was a small snafu in the scheduling and she was working on multiple weddings the same day as mine and she still made it work. I highly recommend The Happy Tart for a sweet gluten free dessert for your celebration!
Happy Tart had always been our go-to for delicious gluten free desserts because myself and several family members have celiac disease. When we were planning our wedding, it was a ...
no-brainer to contact Happy Tart.
Emma was efficient and helpful throughout the booking process. She and the Happy Tart team were lovely to work with. They were happy to make our custom flavor request come true (based on our favorite petit four from the shop). We even provided a quite complicated design for the cake, and they came through with flying colors - even with such a small team.
At the reception, everyone was talking about how beautiful the cake was, and they were even more shocked when they found out that the delicious cake was fully gluten free. We had so many questions about where to find the bakery because our guests could not get enough!
While I'm gluten-free, my husband and most of our guests are not, so we opted for a (regular, gluten-filled) dessert bar through our venue/caterer and a ceremonial cake from The Ha...
ppy Tart. I love the cafe in Falls Church, but asked around for recommendations for a gluten-free wedding cake – and SO many people recommended The Happy Tart. Because they weren't doing in-person cake tastings, we picked up a cupcake sampler and took it home for a virtual tasting with Emma over Zoom. They were delicious! We couldn't decide on a single flavor for our two-tier cake, so Emma did one of each: vanilla salted caramel and almond-raspberry. We provided a few inspirational photos via email and Emma and her team took it from there. The Happy Tart delivered the cake to our venue in Washington, D.C., and Emma decorated it with flowers that our florist provided. It was gorgeous! While we never intended to serve the cake to everyone (selfishly I wanted to eat it with my three Celiac friends), our venue/caterer ended up slicing it anyway and plating it with the dessert bar. I was so bummed to not get any cake beyond a bite during our cake cutting, but our guests raved about it! They had no idea it was gluten-free, and I think we managed to convince a handful of gluten-eating friends and family to start eating GF pastries! I can't say enough amazing things about The Happy Tart.
INCREDIBLE! We needed a gluten free and dairy free wedding cake that everyone would enjoy. Emma brought our wedding cake dream to life: a chocolate cake bottom tier with chocolate ...
ganache layer, a lemon cake top tier with raspberry jam layer, and then the whole thing covered in pink raspberry icing. Our guests are still raving about how great it was, and we ate leftover wedding cake for every meal until it was gone. The non-DF/GF free people couldn't believe it was DF/GF. We plan to go back for every anniversary and have cupcakes made in our chosen tier flavors, it was really that good! Emma was also a dream to work with, she delivered the cake on time and decorated it beautifully with fresh flowers.
WOW. The Happy Tart was incredible to work with and the desserts were delicious. We had to make some major changes to our order about a month out due to COVID restrictions, and the...
y didn't even miss a beat. The cake was beautiful, and our family is still talking about how much they loved it.
We used to spend every Saturday morning at Happy Tart when their Del Rey location was still open, so when we got engaged we knew that’s where we’d get our wedding cake. Emma, the o...
wner, sat with us for our initial tasting, and she answered our many questions about flavor combinations and cake styles that would fit within our budget. On our wedding day, I happened to arrive at the venue with my bridesmaids while Emma was setting up the cake. She gave me a big hug and asked what I thought, and I was blown away by how perfectly she captured our vision for the cake design. She also said the topper wasn’t on yet because she didn’t want to get frosting on the bottom of it (which is great because it’s a keepsake music box). As if her care and attention weren’t enough, the kitchen and display cakes she made were delicious and we got rave reviews from our guests. We’re so glad we saved the top layer for our anniversary! If you want a delicious cake and warm, caring service, we highly recommend Happy Tart.
We used The Happy Tart for the cutting cake at our wedding, and were so excited that being gluten free still meant we could have a delicious cake at our wedding! We shared a photo ...
of our cake design, Emma provided great suggestions, and at the end we had a cake that looked beautiful and tasted even better. The cake prices are reasonable, although the delivery fee was a little high for a small cake (it actually wound up being the same cost as our small cake itself) but understandable given the time & staff commitment involved in dropping it off at the venue. We were able to drop our cake stand off a week before and were pleased with the overall experience. This is a great neighborhood gem with delicious gluten free treats!
We got a small wedding cake from the Happy Tart -- just something for my husband and I to cut and eat -- and it surpassed all expectations! Was delicious, beautifully decorated, an...
d affordable! Would highly recommend.
We had pies instead of cake for our wedding and they were fantastic. Everyone loved the pies at the wedding! No one could tell they were GF. Can’t go wrong with the Happy Tart!
We had such a wonderful experience working with Emma and the Happy Tart team on our wedding cake! I have celiac so I needed a gluten-free cake for our wedding and decided to check ...
out Happy Tart at the recommendation of a friend who had her wedding cake done by Happy Tart. Shortly into our tasting, I knew Happy Tart was who I wanted to work with! Emma was incredibly friendly and professional and greeted us warmly upon our arrival. She took the time to sit with us during and explain each of the different flavor options she had us try and talked about the different flours used, how different icings could withstand heat (we had a summer wedding), etc. Everything we tasted was incredibly delicious (as our wedding guests later attested to and agreed!) and the whole tasting experience really stood out compared to some of the other places we visited (only plain chocolate or plain vanilla gluten-free options; no one really available during tasting to answer any follow-up questions). Emma was also a pleasure to work with when we started to design our wedding cake and it turned out exactly as my husband and I had imagined! We'd highly recommend working with Happy Tart for your wedding cake!
Great prices and a great cake! I would highly recommend!
Thank you so much Emma! Not only did the cake look perfect but it tasted amazing! People kept asking the groom how I could eat cake - they had no idea it was dairy and gluten free ...
based on how it tasted. Thank you so much for making our day extra special!!
We look forward to finding excuses to eat the yummy leftovers and working with you again!!
Delicious! If you're like us, a traditional wedding cake isn't an option. This is the best gluten free cake I've ever had. And it was beautiful! They delivered on time and our gues...
ts all thought it tasted great! Highly recommend if you're looking for a gluten free cake!
It's gluten-free and absolutely delicious and I mean that. It was flavorful and moist, just how any dessert should be.
I got married on Saturday, 9/3 (Labor Day Weekend) and I ha...
d Happy Tart create a cake and all the desserts for my dessert table. It was fabulous. Everyone loved it, even the ones who were skeptical about gluten-free desserts. With my sweet tooth, the cake and desserts were very important to me and Happy Tart didn't let me down.
Emma was very accommodating and creative when it came to my cake and desserts so if I had to do it all again, I would in a second.
Contact
410 S Maple Ave, #110, Falls Church, VA | VA, DC, MD
