For Engy Ghabryal of Divine Dine & Decor, a beautiful wedding cake has only done half its job if the flavor doesn’t live up to the presentation. It is a philosophy shaped by more than 30 years in five-star hospitality and a career spent thinking about how food, service, presentation, and design come together to create an experience.
Ghabryal will bring that perspective to the 2026 Brides & Weddings Cake-Off on Wednesday, September 9, at Sweeney Barn in Manassas, where Divine Dine & Decor will be one of the participating bakers competing for this year’s Cake-Off honors. While the competition gives Ghabryal an opportunity to showcase her cake and dessert work, it also gives wedding professionals a chance to discover a company that approaches weddings from a broader perspective.
Divine Dine & Decor brings together food, desserts, decor, and hospitality, with each element considered part of the couple’s larger celebration.
From Five-Star Hospitality to Personal Celebrations
Divine Dine & Decor grew from Ghabryal’s love of hospitality and her belief that a beautiful event should be about much more than the way a room looks. Her professional background includes more than 30 years in five-star hospitality working with international hotel brands. During those years, she saw firsthand how service, food, presentation, and attention to detail could shape the way guests experienced an event.
When she created Divine Dine & Decor, Ghabryal wanted to bring those standards to weddings and private celebrations while creating a much more personal experience for her clients. Weddings were a natural fit because they bring together so many of the things she loves: hospitality, food, design, culture, family, and celebration.
Today, Divine Dine & Decor works with couples on wedding decor and reception styling as well as custom wedding cakes, dessert displays, and other hospitality elements. “What we enjoy most is taking a couple’s ideas, sometimes even just a few pictures or a feeling they are trying to describe, and turning them into something that feels completely their own,” Ghabryal said.
A Wedding Cake Should Belong in the Whole Celebration
Working across several aspects of a wedding changes the way Ghabryal approaches cakes and desserts. She doesn’t view a wedding cake or dessert table as an isolated element. She considers how it will work alongside the flowers, linens, lighting, colors, menu, culture, and atmosphere of the celebration.
A cake might incorporate a detail from a floral arrangement or reception stage without duplicating it. A dessert display needs to complement the room visually while offering the variety and flavors that will draw guests to the table.
“For us, the goal is always balance,” Ghabryal said. “We want that first reaction to be, ‘Wow, that’s beautiful,’ but when the guests actually taste it, the flavor has to live up to the presentation.” And she has a simple standard for evaluating the result.
“I believe that the beautiful cake that doesn’t taste wonderful has only done half its job,” she said.
The Cake-Off Offers a Different Kind of Creative Challenge
Much of Ghabryal’s professional work involves listening to a client and bringing that person’s ideas to life. The Brides & Weddings Cake-Off gives her an opportunity to reverse that process.
“We spend so much of our time creating for our clients and bringing their ideas to life,” she said. “The Cake-Off gives us a chance to step outside of a specific client’s request and show more of our own creativity, personality, and style.”
That creative freedom helped convince Divine Dine & Decor to enter the 2026 competition. Ghabryal is looking forward to the competitive side of the event, but she is equally interested in meeting other wedding professionals, seeing what the other participating bakers create, and introducing attendees to the dessert side of Divine Dine & Decor.
The Cake-Off brings together professionals from throughout the wedding industry, giving participating bakers an opportunity to meet venues, planners, photographers, florists, caterers, and others who regularly work with engaged couples.
Brides & Weddings also extends that visibility beyond the event through stories, photography, and digital coverage introducing participating bakers and their work to its audience. As for what Ghabryal plans to create for the competition, she isn’t revealing that just yet.
“We’re definitely looking forward to that moment when everyone finally gets to see the finished cake!” she said.
Don’t Plan Your Wedding Food, Cake, and Desserts in Isolation
Ghabryal also has advice for couples planning their own celebrations: think about the experience as a whole. “Your cake, desserts, and food are all part of the story your guests experience that day,” she said. That means considering what guests see when they enter the celebration, what they eat, what they discover later at the dessert table, and even the experience surrounding the cutting of the wedding cake.
She also encourages couples to look beyond whatever happens to be trending at the moment. Trends can provide inspiration, but Ghabryal believes the most memorable celebrations are often those that incorporate something meaningful to the couple.
That could be a favorite flavor, a family tradition, or an element that celebrates their culture.
Remember How You Want Your Guests to Feel
Couples naturally spend considerable time thinking about how their wedding will look in photographs. Ghabryal encourages them to think just as carefully about how the celebration will feel to the people attending it.
Food and dessert are a significant part of that experience.
Guests may remember the striking cake when they first enter the reception, but they will also remember whether they enjoyed eating it. They may notice a beautifully styled dessert table, but the experience becomes more memorable when the flavors, service, and atmosphere complement the presentation.
“When the design is beautiful, the food tastes wonderful, the desserts are memorable, and everything feels connected, that’s when a wedding becomes an experience,” Ghabryal said. It is an approach that reflects the philosophy behind Divine Dine & Decor and one Ghabryal will bring with her when she steps into the Cake-Off competition this September.
See Divine Dine & Decor at the 2026 Brides & Weddings Cake-Off
Divine Dine & Decor will compete alongside other regional wedding bakers at the 2026 Brides & Weddings Cake-Off on Wednesday, September 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Sweeney Barn in Manassas, Virginia.
Participating bakers will showcase their work and compete in categories including Best Flavor, Most Creative, Best Presentation, Best Specialty Item, Best Cupcakes, and Attendees’ Choice.
Wedding-industry professionals are invited to attend for lunch, networking, tastings, and the opportunity to help select the Attendees’ Choice winner.
A percentage of event proceeds will benefit Give Back Prince William in support of the Influential Women Award scholarships.
Learn more about the Brides & Weddings Cake-Off, attendee tickets, and baker participation at the Cake-Off event page.
Couples and wedding professionals can learn more about Divine Dine & Decor at divinedinedecor.com, follow @divine.dine.decor on Instagram, or contact the company at 571-400-1858 or info@divinedinedecor.com.
