"No cards, no cake" in newspaper marriage notices. What does this mean?

[Charlie Bucket]

Hello.
The phrase "No cards, no cake" appears in many newspaper marriage notices, after the wedding, in New Zealand, Australia and North America. Other negatives were often added such as: no fuss, no tears, nobody's business, no regrets etc and sometimes the positive "all joy".

They mainly appear in the 1860 to 1910 period.

Does anyone know the origins of this? And what it all means.

[aghadowey]

Wonder if 'no cake' means the couple weren't sending out wedding cake. It was the custom to send a sliver of cake to guests who couldn't come to the wedding. The oldest one we have is metal and later ones were cardboard about the size of two matchboxes. Sometimes people also send out wedding announcements so perhaps that explains 'no cards.'
For a death sometimes the newspaper announcement would say 'no letters of cards' but that meant people weren't to send letters or sympathy cards.

[Kiltpin]

I would take it at face value - it means exactly what it says. 

Regards 

Chas

[Charlie Bucket]

I'm very sorry I've been so slow in responding.

Many thanks to aghadowey and Kiltpin.

Charlie

[Andrew Tarr]

I would take it at face value - it means exactly what it says. 

I don't think that helps the OP, who clearly doesn't think it means anything exact