Image by Daniel Thomas Photography

As a wedding cake designer there are a few questions I get asked regularly. So I thought I would go through a few of these here to help you out. I’m nice like that!

Image by Freeformimages Photography

One of the most often asked question is ‘How much is a wedding cake?’ And the answer to that is how long is a piece of string?! And almost impossible to answer until I know more about what you want. So try to give your cake designer as much detail as you can so that we can cost everything accurately for you.

Image by Freeformimages Photography

The cost of a wedding cake is going to depend on several things, including;

1/ How big the cake is going to be.

2/ how elaborate the cake is going to be.

 3/ where the cake is being delivered to (distance and time to get there.) These are all things I will ask and need to know before I can give an accurate quote.

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And also, how much have you budgeted for the cake?

Please, please budget enough for the wedding cake! There are few things more depressing to hear than ‘How much????? But it’s only a cake!!!!’ So do your research on what a cake from the cake makers you have in mind will cost. Most good cake makers will have some kind of price guide on their website. You’ve heard the saying ‘Good cake isn’t cheap and cheap cake isn’t good’? You will get what you pay for.

Image by Freeformimages Photography

The next thing I think I get asked about the most is the size of the cake.

Now this one is easier to answer.

We won’t expect you to know exactly the size of cake you’re going to need. So simply tell your cake maker how many guests you need it to serve, and when you plan to serve it (so small portions with coffee or buffet, or as desert). We will then work out what size you will need. Easy as that.

There are many cake serving size charts on the internet you can look at, and we all have ones we like to use. They won’t vary greatly so it’s worth have a quick google. You can see the one I use on my website www.clairessweettemptations.com. I like it because it gives the options of the portion sizes as well as the cake sizes.

Image by Freeformimages Photography

So it will tell you how many 1x1in or 2x1in you’ll get from each size of cake.

And you’ll notice too that wedding and events cakes are cut up differently to the way we cut cake at home. For your wedding the cake will be cut using the grid method, rather than into wedges. This will mean you can get more servings from the cake. You don’t need to worry about this though, your caterer or venue staff will know how to do this.

There’s a general rule of thumb to knock off 10% of the guest numbers when ordering the cake. This is because not everyone will want it (yes there are some odd people out there who don’t like cake!!!) But if in any doubt order for more rather than less. There’s nothing worse than having to tell some of your guests that there isn’t any cake left, so they can’t have any.

Image by Browning Photographic

Fake cakes and dummy tiers.

Now I’m going to quickly bust a myth here. Many people think that having fake tiers will make the wedding cake cheaper.  The fact is, it won’t.

You have a fake tier or tiers because you want the look of a big cake when you don’t actually need that much real cake.

If you have fallen in love with the idea of a five-tier extravaganza of a cake, but you’re only having 30 guests. This is when you have some fake tiers.

The fake tiers must be ordered, and can cost upwards of £20 each depending on size and shape. And they then have to be decorated in the exact same way and with the same amount of time and skill as the real cake tiers. So you can see that they won’t actually cost less. In fact they can cost more if it’s a very specific shape that is a special order such as a castle etc.

Make it yours!

It’s your wedding after all. So make it yours! And this includes the cake. In fact the cake is a great place to inject some personality with so many options. This is where the skills of your cake maker come into their own. We know all kinds of ways to turn your wedding cake into the stuff of your dreams. That’s our job after all!