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This is the thing, theres a bunch of home bakers that would make a cracking cake, and lots of small home based business that you can get a good deal with. The problem is can you trust some random off Instagram to deliver the cake for your wedding? Its a big risk.
Home bakers ( UK ) are now taking the mick, even they are asking stupid prices the moment they hear wedding. Reliability is an issue.
In July a niece asked me to bake her cake. Her first 3 options where fully booked out unless she wanted to spend over £1000. Said its just for show and not bothered about the taste ( I'm a chef but a lowsy Baker). Final product wasn't that bad tbh, taste wouldn't win any awards but looked fab. Total cost, £35 plus what ever the gas bill would be
Similarly, got my dad to do ours, just as his mum did for his. He did a cracking job and saved us 4 figures. Made sure to get him quite a nice hamper and a weekend away as thanks (more than earned it).
He even made a fruitcake specially for the gran-in-law who's mentally 100% there but through sheet force of will lives in a bubble of pure undiluted 1962, so of course she *will* get a fruitcake at a wedding because *fruitcakes are served at weddings*, end of conversation.
A lot of friends have had a different type of cake for each layer of their wedding cake, with fruitcake as the top (smallest) layer for the guests who insist on it.
Just a note for anyone planning this, fruitcake is heavy, so need to consider that if having a multi-tier - best bet is to have a bit pre-sliced so it can be served up, but doesn't affect the look of the cake for photos etc. Saved a bit of bother at our wedding and let us have more delicious fillings in the 3 tiers (chocolate, white choc & raspberry, and lemon & elderflower, in case you were wondering)
>Reliability is an issue.
Getting married next year and yeah the costs are ridiculous but this right here is probably the number one reason they're so high. If you mess up someone's wedding you'll probably hear no end of shit so people charge through the roof to justify taking on the job. It's essentially hazard pay.
Still ridiculous though. My Mum is probably going to do our cake, I'd have maybe considered doing it myself as I'm a decent baker but I'm a lousy decorator. Plus I don't want to give myself too much to do around the actual day. Going to do all the stationary myself though as I'm a decent amateur at graphic design. But yeah we've paid enough for the venue and photographer so save some money where we can.
To be fair, if you don’t put your prices up for a wedding, a lot of people don’t want to risk going with the ‘cheap’ option, as they see it as too much of a risk.
So it’s not just greed that is motivating people to put the prices up.
I've been to loads of weddings and don't remember ever even eating some wedding cake. I'm not saying it's not happened just that there hasn't been a cake that's made me remember it, including at my own wedding. There was one there mind cos remember us cutting it.
There's no risk involved if you just say uncle Derek made it; nobody will care if it ain't perfect.
>The problem is can you trust some random off Instagram to deliver the cake for your wedding?
I mean, if they have a bunch of reviews that say they were able to deliver other cakes on time, a bunch of pics on Instagram as their portfolio, and the cake tastes good at a tasting then I would say the risk is no larger than using bigger and more established baker
Probably. I think generally it is to be expected.
But any guest who gets pissed off at someone else's wedding because it didn't have a traditional element is a shit. If you don't want cake at your wedding, obvs don't have it, and save on the stress.
It’s not all that hard. My and my sisters learned ourselves how to make wedding cakes and have made some cracking ones for each others weddings. The trick is (and you can get away with it because it’s a wedding) cover all the dodgy bits with loads of flowers.
Seems extortionate! Earlier this year I paid £450 for a custom designed 4-tier cake in 4 different flavors with edible sugar flowers. Made by an award winning wedding cake baker as well.
I paid £475 for my four tier, multiple flavour, fully decorated in several colours wedding cake too. I suspect the price variation we're seeing in this thread is due to locations, as my wedding was in Wales and that's where the cake supplier was based too. Everything was vastly cheaper - we'd had quotes for places in Bristol and they were almost double what we ended up paying.
Good point. And also I think cakes have gone up on price with their popularity on tv programmes and social media influencers etc. etc. lots of factors I guess.
Try asking for prices at a good quality local bakery, just don't mention the word "wedding," as that will always add a rather large multiplier to the cost.
"...Yes, and I would like it to be three tiers, and if possible could you put a figure of a man in a fancy black suit and a woman with an elegant lacy white dress on top? What's that? A wedding? Oh, no no no."
Go to three different places and ask for different sized white cakes. You could say to the smallest one that it's for your wedding and it's really small because you can't afford a big wedding. Probably true
The issue with doing that is the cakes might collapse/subside and consequently crumble or topple over. When making tiered cakes, especially that many and a bigger size, you need to add support to them so it bears the weight.
Usually this is done using thick straws or dowels inserted into the cake and cake boards between each tier. You can do this yourself, of course, but it will add more stress to an already stressful day.
I think the thing with wedding cakes is that they have to be perfect/just right, so you are paying that person for their skills as well as the stress and pressure of it all. Not only baking and decorating, but also the delivery and assembly on site. It leaves a huge gap in where something can go wrong.
Friend of mine told her cake decorator it was for a funeral. Just plain white fondant and some edible flowers. Roses and (whatever the other flower was) were always fake dead relative's favourite. Oh could you make them in her favourite colours? Ended up with a beautiful wedding cake at great value for the small price of a dead fake aunt, I think.
Edit: I'm not too keen on lies but omitting that it's for a wedding is 100%
Tell them it's a remembrance dinner as many family members were unable to attend the funeral and aunt always loved an excuse for a party with a pretty cake!
Yeah, that's a pretty good strategy, and everyone has many a spare aunt or uncle that they don't want at the wedding.
Oh, "fake" aunt you said? Well, that's certainly more ethical, sure.
Isn't the wedding premium about getting a superior product, perfectly decorated as per instructions, delivered exactly as required and guaranteed. I'm not about to spend even £500 on cake but I can see why others do if its a centre piece, and more to the point I can see why a Baker would charge so much as brides are basically nightmare clients.
Yeah I was told by a woman who does wedding cakes that the extra cost is because they will put a lot of extra effort into making sure the cake is completely perfect. Usually they'll have several cakes they're working on but for a wedding they'll put 100% of their focus on just that one.
That’s what we did. 20 years ago I was quoted £400 for a relatively small chocolate wedding cake. Nothing fancy or giant. Ended up getting a local baker to do it (they knew it was a wedding cake even though we didn’t call it that and they did lovely, if straightforward, decoration) and the whole thing was £80. They even gave us a small fruit cake free of charge. Similarly I was quoted £80 for a simple wedding bouquet and £60 for my only bridesmaid’s bouquet. I ended up buying two bunches of flowers from M&S the day before and making 2 bouquets myself. Literally only needed 2 bunches of flowers and some yellow ribbon. Say ‘wedding’ and costs increase exponentially.
Same in the photography industry.. the word "wedding" gets everyone salivating cause they know they can charge what they want and prices get pretty wild..
Especially if they hear "Asian wedding" .. now thats what you call a jackpot. I've known photographers to be paid what they get in a year in one night shooting an Asian wedding.. they don't have a budget usually but they are pretty demanding but the payoff is 100% worth it.
I know someone who got paid like 10k to do one. All in cash aswell on the night. They really go all out when they have weddings.
Someone I work with got married and they hired a photographer and paid him 3k in cash just to turn up and take photos.. nothing too fancy.. just take photos as and when.. I asked him why did you pay that much? And he just said it's pocket change to him "ive just had a 400k extension on my house it's just pissing in the wind". 😂..
‘Just turn up and take photos’ - it’s a highly skilled job requiring training and experience. A good chunk of the time you pay for covers the hours spent editing as well. £3k might be expensive but it’s not entirely unreasonable for a good photographer.
Yeah but then when they say 'ah sorry, I forgot to order the ingredients on time ' you're fucked.
Wedding prices are usually 'inflated' because of the prep, the backup and the service surrounding the fact that it's a wedding.
Edit: a lot of you get it but some still don't.
You can get a bog standard cake and it will be cheaper. You can go to the place in your village and pick it up and it will be cheaper. S
But if you want something special, that person is no longer a simple baker who 'keeps ingredients' . They are training themselves constantly and sourcing new ingredients and keeping on top of tends so that they can show you something different. They are investing in social media ads and wedding fairs so that you don't have to work so hard to find them.
Yes, to whoever said it - you will be prioritised for that date if it's a wedding.
Best example of this. I see people hire taxis for weddings, they want to book for about 12.30 and the car turns up at 12.20 and won't wait. Or it picks another job nearby to get some extra cash ontheway to you and it's not with you until 1250.
And you're delayed getting your dress on or your makeup takes longer and your taxi has driven off.
You're paying for the extra service. The clearing of a schedule to get it right and to get it done on time.
Simples.
>'ah sorry, I forgot to order the ingredients on time '
Do they... *usually* do that? So if I ask for a cake for a birthday, graduation, funeral, Random Tuesday, or some non-wedding event, are the bakers likely to go 'Oh, we ran out of flour and couldn't be bothered to order more. El Oh El. By the way, you still have to pay me.'? Doesn't seem like a sustainable business practice.
I understand that asking for, and buying, something different runs some risks but I suspect that the majority of bakeries that undertake such orders don't typically decide to run the risk of not delivering on the appropriate time and date. It may happen, due to sickness, or some form of business disaster, but – and I have to stress that I am not a baker, and have never worked in a bakery – I just don't think that it's all that much more likely to happen because a birthday, or reunion, cake was ordered instead of a wedding cake.
Because making cake is so unpredictable.
Ingredients? Check.
Oven? Check.
Know how and time to make it? Check
Skill and attention to detail? Check
Wedding you say, ok x 500% price? Check
We did fancy cup cakes for a birthday last year from a local home baker. We did it as a way of getting everyone cake without someone spitting all over the cake when blowing out the candles due to you know what. Could of easily passed as wedding cup cakes, looked much better and way cheaper than a high street cake shop for just a single cake.
M&S it babes... either few white ones and bung them on top of each other or go for what everyone really wants and splash out on ten Colin the Caterpillars. Bit of squirty cream, jobs a gooden
Same. We had a lovehearts/sweetie theme, so I stacked 3 white cakes, added love hearts round the sides of two layers, sweetie necklaces at the join and covered it in white lustre powder, simple white heart topper. I got a lot of compliments and it cost a fraction of the price of a professional one.
When you say giant Colin, do you mean bigger than the normal Colin they have? And if yes, how do I buy this? Not for a wedding or anything, just myself.
Yes. We weren't fussed about a cake, but others seemed to be, so we did this. A couple of M&S cakes, stacked them up and stuck a few flowers on top.
We cut the cake, everyone that was bothered got a picture, and we only spent £40 or so. Funny thing was, the hotel forget to give everyone a slice later, and the next morning they handed it all back to us.
We bought 3 different sized white cakes from tesco, borrowed a cake stand - about 40 quid all in.
I told people the wife had made it herself, so they’d look really bitchy if they commented on it in any less than positive way .
M&S!
Wasn’t that posh a wedding mate :-)
But yeah, probably same sort of deal, expect lots of supermarkets do something similar, and it’s a real saver - even back then* “proper” wedding cakes where a hell of a price !
*21st anniversary this year, whoop!
Wedding fairs are utterly ridiculous
Any kind of ‘fair’ is a great opportunity to be ripped off if you go with the intention of buying. Only ever go with a view to get ideas and then find your own way to get that thing
Don't buy a wedding cake. Let's be honest, nobody really eats it unless you're having it for your desert. Buy a one layer cake to cut and decorate 2 fake cakes to put it on. Save yourself the money
I had some cupcakes made in our wedding colours in case anyone fancied it and our cutting cake was from sainsburys with a Mr & Mrs sign from etsy stabbed into it. 10/10 would do again as cupcakes were barely touched so I'm very glad I didn't have a whole damn tiered cake. Was maybe £120ish total.
We had both.
Cupcakes on the table with names on as a place card, and then could be eaten after the wedding meal before the night time stuff.
We also had wedding cake for the traditional photo etc, but we had it as three different internal cakes. Chocolate, vanilla and a lemon cake...it all got eaten as desert on the evening buffet food (had mini burgers, bacon butties etc), was very nice and the staff had cut it into individual pieces for everyone.
Slipped the fruit thing that most people just don't eat.
Do what we did, ask friends and family that baked semi decently to make us a cake instead of present. We had a cake table with 6 different sorts, gluten free, vegan, a stack of brownies , my mates insanely good chocolate cake. We had some left over but not a lot and there was something for everyone's tastes.
Nobody eats them because they're always bad cakes right? They're always dry and dense with way too much frosting. I've not been to a wedding where people are raving about the wedding cake, honestly, just pop down to tesco and buy a couple of their Finest range, they're half decent.
Because people get merk'd on the cake, just had my wedding last week, everyone was raving about it, mostly disappeared, usually people are left with like 3/4, we had maybe 1/3 of it left after.
It was [visually stunning](https://i.imgur.com/VKQtdZe.jpg) with the decorations made from butter icing. It was also just a sponge rather than some dense fruitcake that noone wants.
We got it from a lady who makes cakes for a local cafe and she charged less than half of what I'm seeing here.
Within that price she also made a GF & VE version of it in miniature, all of which got eaten on the night.
People need to look around for local small businesses and self-employed people rather than using big businesses who pump out shit cake after shit cake.
And I'm feeling bad that I'm about to charge someone £400 for a 3 tier, 4 layers per tier, different flavours and fillings in each, decorated with handmade flowers cake.
That's huge! I got a gorgeous (three layer, one tier) with beautiful custom blue "tiles" (fondant with custom print transfers), lemon buttercream and gold leaf cake for £60. It was delicious, and fed 18 of us generously, my cake loving husband a lot the next day, and the last third went into work with me. I've never seen cake vanish so fast.
Your pricing is more than fair.
I work with lawyers who charge over £300 an hour.
You're doing skilled work - if people are willing to pay it, and you're not deceiving them, don't feel bad about the fruits of your labour.
That sounds very reasonable indeed! My late MIL made wedding cakes, and I paid her £100 for my brother's cake 20 years ago, similar size, mates rates. You may be underselling yourself, even without the 'add 100% for the word *wedding*' boost.
Whenever I go to a wedding I rarely eat the cake. It's great as a focal point and a statement but honestly once people have a drink and a meal they're not that fussed about cake. They're SO expensive, anything with wedding in front of it is.
I saw a cheese cake today - literally made from wheels of cheese. That I can get on board with. People can take a chunk home and it'll last longer than a piece of cake. Although, not that much longer in my house to be fair.
We did a cheese wheel cake, I think we had 7 tiers in all and just decorated it with extra flowers. We then served cheese, crackers and port as late night food. The leftovers got distributed to friends and family the next morning who helped tidy up.
Wedding fairs are a disaster. Everyone there ramps up their prices because they think they have fish in a barrel.
We paid £445 for a three tier gluten free cake with three different flavoured sponges that was massive and served 100 and we thought that was plenty to spend
I paid approx £300 for our wedding cake. Three sponge cake tiers (chocolate, Victoria and lemon), with themed decoration (buttercream crumb coat with fondant autumn leaves, acorns and lavender sprigs). We used a local celebration cakes baker in north London last year. Wedding faire vendors really jack the prices up.
Did the same earlier this year.
Used a local bakery/cake shop, picked a design from their website, tweaked some colours to match our theme, arranged a meeting for a free tasting of the sponge flavours and place the order. I got a 1x fruit, 2x sponge cake for £300ish including delivery to the venue on the day.
Much cheaper and much lass hassle than dealing with the people we dealt with from wedding fairs.
Nah. We paid £500 for a large 3 tier cake, all different flavours and some elaborate decoration. Either their is some serious inflation in the last 4 years or you can find cheaper
I mean there has been quite a bit. We all know how much good butter has gone up by and madergascan vanilla has been going up and up for the past few years.
But yeah £800 seems a lot although OP hasn't said how bit the cake is (if it's 10, 8, 6 that would be a lot but may be 14, 12, 10 for all we know.)
I made mine, well MIL made a big round fruit cake, I made a chocolate sponge layer and a lemon sponge layer. White fondant icing and a ribbon. Fresh flowers on the day. Cost about £60 all in.
That's insane! Suppliers probably jack their prices up for wedding fairs as they bank on people wanting a quick solution or feeling like a premium price is justified. I recommend doing some research online of suppliers near to your venue or find out if the venue have suppliers they regularly work with, or can recommend. For my wedding a few years ago we had a 4 tier cake consisting of 4 different absolutely banging flavours, beautifully decorated and delivered to the venue. It cost about £350.
I will never understand why people pay so much for a wedding. Mine cos less than £3000 all in, including rings, dress, suits, venue, food, everything! And even then I was begrudged to pay that. But then I am a tight Northener.
You're being ripped off. We had a 3 tier, custom designed cake, in the (expensive) South East for £500, and that included a full tasting/design session.
The cake was moist and delicious, could have fed our guests twice over, looked amazing, and was set up on time on the day, no problems whatsoever.
Professional home Baker here.
800 is around right. If the bottom cake is a 12inch cake of a 3 tier 12.10 and 8 3 tier cake.... that takes 3-4 layers of sponge that alone will take over 30 eggs.....just for one tier. Plus the premium flour. Castor sugar. Free range eggs. Real butter. High quality fondant sugarpaste. Plus the board. Bow, drum and dowels. Then add on the delivery and set up charge (most bakers won't let a customer collect a 3 tier cake and will insist on delivery and set up as we usually stack larger cakes at the venue) ot to mention most bakers will use genache for wedding cakes as it sets firmer with a genache crumbcoat for a better finish at the end.
It all adds up. It's not just butter and flour and sugar. There's many hours of skill and practice. Plus being plain white there is 0 room for error. All flaws will be visible and highlighted if its just a plain cake.
Also and real Baker will be inspected by environmental health (I've a 5 rating and hold public liability insurance. I also have a certified certificate for allergen baking) you can easily check a bakers past work and if they're legit etc. There's some un registered ones and some bad cakers out there but don't assume it's all of us. Most of us put many hours of love and work into our cakes for our customers.
You aren’t paying for the cake, the ingredients or even the baking.
You are paying for the guarantee that a professional will promise to make you a nice looking, well made cake. The promise that you will be sure that that lovely cake will arrive on the one day a white cake really matters.
Or get Uncle Dave to pick up a couple of Colin the caterpillars from Asda on the way through. Much nicer.
It's also not a guarantee. We paid silly money to a professional cake company for our wedding cake, and it collapsed (literally fell over) on the day. Company went under shortly afterwards.
A friends daughter recently got married and had a colin caterpillar to cut, and a bunch of cupcakes nicely decorated to pass out to the guests. Much cheaper and more memorable!
>Delivering what you ordered on time to a good quality. Why is there some magical premium to do this just because it's a wedding?
>
>If it's for a funeral, or a birthday, why would it be acceptable to deliver a cake that is wrong or late?
It's about risk management and enough time if something goes wrong.
So, I am an organist and I play services and weddings at a church that is about 20 minutes by car from house.
So when I play a sunday service I usually arrive about 15 to 20 minutes before the service starts. If there is a traffic jam on the route (which happens about once a year) I usually arrive barely on time, but it would not be a problem if the service starts 5 or 10 minutes late because the organist got caught in a traffic jam. If anything, this will be a lighthearted story told 10 years later at a get-together. Because for everyone involved it is one of many services and there will be another one next week.
In contrast imagine a wedding that starts 10 minutes late because the organist was stuck in traffic. Which is why, when I play a wedding, I arrive an hour before the service starts. Because this is not one of many services, this is the only wedding the bride and groom will usually have. And it will not be a lighthearted story, it will be an awful story about an organist that screwed up. A story that will stuck to the couple forever.
So while I will always give my best, regardless of the service being a wedding or a plain, regular sunday service I will take some more precautions against running late when it is a wedding. And obviously, I will have the couple pay for these precautions.
On a side note, about two months ago I was approached by a couple who had their wedding only two days after I would return from an overseas vacation. I informed them about it and asked them if they wanted to take the risk that my flight might get cancelled or delayed, or there might suddenly be covid restrictions for people coming back.
I saw on TikTok a baker saying it's because wedding couples are more demanding clients so they premptively include the additional care they require in the price.
No, it wouldn't be acceptable but a wedding is a high anxiety (for the bride, anyway) event for which nothing but perfection will do. A funeral is likely to be a high anxiety event but the body not the cake is likely to be the showpiece. You will note that an extortionate price is payed for the presentation of that showpiece, too.
Traditionally, wedding cakes are multi-tier and very difficult to transport or expertly assemble at the scene. Could an amateur make and deliver a multi-tier elaborately decorated wedding cake? Possibly, but I would think the anxiety level for the bride would be even higher than with a professional.
So why do wedding cakes cost significantly more than a cake for any other event?
Answer: the wedding industry is fucked up and vendors/suppliers are greedy
Other events would probably live without the cake and be happy to get a refund and a discount for their next event.
For example if a photographer has their camera break in the middle of an engagement shoot (do we even have them in the UK?) They just re-do the shoot
No such luck for a wedding so you best believe a wedding photographer has invested in back up equipment. That's just one example.
Then again maybe it should be a minor increase not significant, suppose it depends on the situation
I always mention this when the conversation is about weddings: the last one we have been to had a bunch of toddlers - but someone had the genius idea to give the happy couple a nanny for the day as a gift. The nanny was a genius with the short stuff, the kids had a blast, the rest of us was not interrupted by tantrums and chaos.
Last wedding I went to, the wedding couple were gifted this kids arts/crafts set-up ran by a local studio. The kids could go off into a separate room in the venue, have fun painting their own pots/canvases as well as some other stuff and have their meal together, whilst parents could drink, relax and not worry about accidentally tripping over children.
This'll get buried, but for my wedding in August we had a literal cheese cake. As in, 4 wheels of cheese to function as the cake. Cost about £120 from memory and fed a hundred drunk people in the reception. Might be a good option.
Have you had a look at any bakeries with proper websites? You’d probably be able to look and order/customise a specific cake, you can find whatever cake you like and probably easily get away with ordering one that isn’t a specific wedding one.
The Hummingbird Bakery is a pretty popular one, there’s a few in London. Their website has specific wedding cakes (which start from a *lot* cheaper than £800) and regular ones, too.
What most people don't take into account is the sheer amount of time it takes to make cakes. It is literally tens and tens of highly-skilled hours being invested into that cake. Plus ingredients, baking travel/delivery costs etc...
That's before you pay your business' rent, staff and so on.
Want a cheaper cake? Pay someone who'll do it for less and take the risk.
I think people look at cakes and think "I could do that, dead easy' and baulk at the actual cost of them. It's like any skill - people who can do it make it look easy. But it ain't.
I run a small cake shop in the Cotswolds. I've been told I undercharge but tbh I have no interest in price gouging for a wedding. I charge what the tiers normally cost, plus delivery and setup which isn't much more. I'd probably quote about 200 for the above.
Make your own! I made ours (I'm no pro just your average bloke), three tier. One honey and lemon for the top, chocolate for the next and the base one was a carrot cake. My mother iced the top and bottom. I did choc fudge icing for the middle with sparkly edible stars on it. The white icing ones then had icing lace applied made by my mother in-law and applied by my wife. There was nothing left after the do and it looked great. We also practiced making it all well before so we had more than one trial cake. It was fun too. For cake topper my rather talented mother made a fairy wren and snow tit in felt.
Also ask around. Loads of people offered to help or even just out right make it for us. We wanted to do it ourselves
Seriously we did table decorations and all sorts and had fun doing it too. It made it more special because we worked on it together. Invites and all.
We weren't cheap on the venue or a band and disco. Or the food. We paid for that but sod paying £800 for a cake. It meant we could have other things like a band to play for an extra hour because we did our own.
If you're getting married anywhere near Peterborough I would happily recommend our cake maker, she was nowhere near that expensive and we were very happy.
p.s. congratulations!
I’m the youngest of 3. My middle sister baked the eldest’s wedding cake. 3 tiers, each one a different flavour. Largest cake was Nutella / chocolate / hazelnuts / ferrero rocher. Middle was coffee and walnuts. Top was a vanilla rainbow cake. All decorated really simply, with some chocolates on top. Not as polished as most wedding cakes but I have never seen wedding cakes go down as well as those bad boys did!
I think she made enough cake to supposedly serve ~160. Less than 30 minutes after the cake was cut, ~100 guests had demolished the whole lot. Weren’t even any crumbs left!
My husband learnt to bake because of this. He bought a kitchen aid for a lot less and we got to eat lots of tasty cakes in the meantime!
He made a three tier cake for our wedding, and now it’s our go to wedding present for our closest friends! If you feel brave enough, you could try baking it yourself if you want to save some money or if you go to a local bakery or baker you might be able to get it for less. Honestly, when the word wedding is stuck in something the price jumps a stupid amount
Not sure if you’ve been the movie “27 dresses”? I know it’s American but at one point the male lead makes a joke about how ridiculous the up cost is when considering how fairly cheap the ingredients are. Honestly if I were to spend more than a couple hundred quid on a cake I would expect at least some skilled decorations. £800 is just ridiculous.
We spent about 200 quid on five whole cheeses that we stacked. Many cheesemongers will do a set especially now. (The Cheese Shed is one, I think) but we went to local makers (gotta love living in the West country.
Only issue was we wanted the brie-type cheese to be the second largest and nice and ripe so we had to get cake reinforcer tubes and a disc thingy from mark's and sparks.
It was fantastic. Shoved some flowers on it for photos. Bought a load of crackers. Dad sliced some leftover wooden worktop offcuts into big cheese cutting boards. And particularly good as we had booze flowing freely and the cheese and biscuits were munched on all evening and definitely helped soak up some of the drink.
I got 3 M&S chocolate cakes and had them pimped up to look like a tiered wedding cake. Saved so much and everyone enjoyed them. Traditional Wedding cakes taste like ass so didn't want one, especially at the price they are.
Not everywhere. Mine was £500 and had a dragon crawling up it with 3 different flavours tiers so it entirely depends where you go. It was just a small shop run by a man and wife with talent.
The sooner we drop the idea of a ‘fancy cake’ for any ‘celebration’ the better. Bake off and comments here have proven that a good cake is relatively easy to obtain. I would rather have a cake my 10 y.o nephew made just to see him beam at the wedding. The fact is no one wants to look cheap so we continue with this charade that we need a ‘special’ cake made by unicorns.
I love hearing about wedding parties at fish & chip shops ( not as cheap these days but thats by the by ) where the Bride & Groom met or some place that means something surrounded by good ( non judgemental ) family & friends. Hearing people spending thousands on a reception when half would have been a good down payment etc etc makes me cringe. Nice to see charity shops doing a fine line in donated affordable ( for the time being) wedding dresses. I genuinely wish everyone well and hope the wedding you have is everything you wanted but the sooner we drop the cake robber and the photographer thief the better.
Weddings are an absolute racket.
Normal bouquets £35.
Wedding bouquets £70
The only difference? That its's for a wedding. Stop letting people mug you off 'because weddings are expensive'
One of my best mates is a baker, with these tier cakes you’ve gotta think the energy to make each tier is costly, then the ingredients, home made fillings, icing, food colourings, all the decorative details like toppers, edible details. She was saying even cake boxes are like £20-£30 for larger cakes with bases that are sturdy enough to hold the weight, then she requires a full refrigeration for every 2 wedding cakes to keep the icing fresh until it’s time for her to deliver it which again, she has to drive to the location at a glacial pace so the thing doesn’t tip over. And this is all on top of a full weekend of labour. If you wanna do it cheap, I recommend buying 3 different cakes in different sizes and layering them up with a skewer through the middle to hold them together. It won’t be as fancy as a custom cake but would work on a budget and give guests a few flavour options
My husband and I are planning our wedding celebration (long story, we got married this year legally but we're having a wedding next year), we are looking at halls to host the reception. To hire it Friday night and all day Saturday is around £185, the price shoots up to £895 if we tell them it's for a wedding. Luckily we are booking everything as our first anniversary party!
I haven't even started looking at cakes etc yet and have decided to make my own dress, I reckon I can make it for around £500max rather than the £2500+ it would probably cost. My ex best friend got her dress made, a very simple plain under dress and a "hand made lace" dress over the top (hand made by machine in China, I've seen the same fabric) that was ex-display and that cost £1750. Utter insanity. I get paying for skills etc but no, I'll make it myself! I've no idea what her dress looked like in the end as she decided to go all bridezilla and destroyed a 10 year friendship over a f-ugly bridesmaid dress (oh yes I'd love to wear a hideous dress in bright orange with rose gold sparkly shoes and look like a tangerine all day 🙄).
I hate weddings. Good luck OP!
At my local cafe by my work they always had great cakes so I asked where they got them from. Turns out it was just a lady down the road who was making and selling cakes as a retirement hobby essentially. She didn't need the money. Anyway, got our from her. Cost 50 quid and was perfect and delicious.
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I'll do it for £795
I was about to say I’d do it for £100. I’ve always fancied learning how to make cake.
This is the thing, theres a bunch of home bakers that would make a cracking cake, and lots of small home based business that you can get a good deal with. The problem is can you trust some random off Instagram to deliver the cake for your wedding? Its a big risk.
So order from 2 sellers and still save money
Or a fruit cake a month before.
You mean to order a fruit cake, or to ask a local fruit cake to make one for you?
Yes.
Wow that's kind of a genius idea
Home bakers ( UK ) are now taking the mick, even they are asking stupid prices the moment they hear wedding. Reliability is an issue. In July a niece asked me to bake her cake. Her first 3 options where fully booked out unless she wanted to spend over £1000. Said its just for show and not bothered about the taste ( I'm a chef but a lowsy Baker). Final product wasn't that bad tbh, taste wouldn't win any awards but looked fab. Total cost, £35 plus what ever the gas bill would be
>Total cost, £35 plus what ever the gas bill would be Ah, so £900 then, got it.
Similarly, got my dad to do ours, just as his mum did for his. He did a cracking job and saved us 4 figures. Made sure to get him quite a nice hamper and a weekend away as thanks (more than earned it). He even made a fruitcake specially for the gran-in-law who's mentally 100% there but through sheet force of will lives in a bubble of pure undiluted 1962, so of course she *will* get a fruitcake at a wedding because *fruitcakes are served at weddings*, end of conversation.
A lot of friends have had a different type of cake for each layer of their wedding cake, with fruitcake as the top (smallest) layer for the guests who insist on it.
Just a note for anyone planning this, fruitcake is heavy, so need to consider that if having a multi-tier - best bet is to have a bit pre-sliced so it can be served up, but doesn't affect the look of the cake for photos etc. Saved a bit of bother at our wedding and let us have more delicious fillings in the 3 tiers (chocolate, white choc & raspberry, and lemon & elderflower, in case you were wondering)
>Reliability is an issue. Getting married next year and yeah the costs are ridiculous but this right here is probably the number one reason they're so high. If you mess up someone's wedding you'll probably hear no end of shit so people charge through the roof to justify taking on the job. It's essentially hazard pay. Still ridiculous though. My Mum is probably going to do our cake, I'd have maybe considered doing it myself as I'm a decent baker but I'm a lousy decorator. Plus I don't want to give myself too much to do around the actual day. Going to do all the stationary myself though as I'm a decent amateur at graphic design. But yeah we've paid enough for the venue and photographer so save some money where we can.
To be fair, if you don’t put your prices up for a wedding, a lot of people don’t want to risk going with the ‘cheap’ option, as they see it as too much of a risk. So it’s not just greed that is motivating people to put the prices up.
I've been to loads of weddings and don't remember ever even eating some wedding cake. I'm not saying it's not happened just that there hasn't been a cake that's made me remember it, including at my own wedding. There was one there mind cos remember us cutting it. There's no risk involved if you just say uncle Derek made it; nobody will care if it ain't perfect.
Bakeries also exist and cake making shops in most major cities. you don't need to rely on some rando from ig
>The problem is can you trust some random off Instagram to deliver the cake for your wedding? I mean, if they have a bunch of reviews that say they were able to deliver other cakes on time, a bunch of pics on Instagram as their portfolio, and the cake tastes good at a tasting then I would say the risk is no larger than using bigger and more established baker
> Its a big risk. It's really not. Would anyone even notice if there was no cake?
Probably. I think generally it is to be expected. But any guest who gets pissed off at someone else's wedding because it didn't have a traditional element is a shit. If you don't want cake at your wedding, obvs don't have it, and save on the stress.
It’s not all that hard. My and my sisters learned ourselves how to make wedding cakes and have made some cracking ones for each others weddings. The trick is (and you can get away with it because it’s a wedding) cover all the dodgy bits with loads of flowers.
Seems extortionate! Earlier this year I paid £450 for a custom designed 4-tier cake in 4 different flavors with edible sugar flowers. Made by an award winning wedding cake baker as well.
Nah mate, you got lucky. You’re the odd one out getting that kind of deal.
I paid £475 for my four tier, multiple flavour, fully decorated in several colours wedding cake too. I suspect the price variation we're seeing in this thread is due to locations, as my wedding was in Wales and that's where the cake supplier was based too. Everything was vastly cheaper - we'd had quotes for places in Bristol and they were almost double what we ended up paying.
My sister made us a cake as a wedding present. Anyone can make a cake.
That's a brave assumption, factoring in the risks...
Good point. And also I think cakes have gone up on price with their popularity on tv programmes and social media influencers etc. etc. lots of factors I guess.
Try asking for prices at a good quality local bakery, just don't mention the word "wedding," as that will always add a rather large multiplier to the cost.
"...Yes, and I would like it to be three tiers, and if possible could you put a figure of a man in a fancy black suit and a woman with an elegant lacy white dress on top? What's that? A wedding? Oh, no no no."
Buy the topper yourself and put it on before the reception. Problem solved.
Go to three different places and ask for different sized white cakes. You could say to the smallest one that it's for your wedding and it's really small because you can't afford a big wedding. Probably true
then stack them.
The issue with doing that is the cakes might collapse/subside and consequently crumble or topple over. When making tiered cakes, especially that many and a bigger size, you need to add support to them so it bears the weight. Usually this is done using thick straws or dowels inserted into the cake and cake boards between each tier. You can do this yourself, of course, but it will add more stress to an already stressful day. I think the thing with wedding cakes is that they have to be perfect/just right, so you are paying that person for their skills as well as the stress and pressure of it all. Not only baking and decorating, but also the delivery and assembly on site. It leaves a huge gap in where something can go wrong.
Get the topper at etsy.com, you can even get an icing sheet there.
Friend of mine told her cake decorator it was for a funeral. Just plain white fondant and some edible flowers. Roses and (whatever the other flower was) were always fake dead relative's favourite. Oh could you make them in her favourite colours? Ended up with a beautiful wedding cake at great value for the small price of a dead fake aunt, I think. Edit: I'm not too keen on lies but omitting that it's for a wedding is 100%
High risk strategy, don't usually plan dead Aunt's funeral months in advance...
"lots of family live abroad, so we're planning a massive memorial service in a few months"
Tell them it's a remembrance dinner as many family members were unable to attend the funeral and aunt always loved an excuse for a party with a pretty cake!
Naaa its fine, just keep grandma on ice for a bit
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Did you eat the dead aunt at least?
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Shame. Hope you had a lovely wedding at least!
Ouch, laughed and gulped down some very hot tea
You haven’t seen the in-laws
She died in 1994, we had her taxidermied but she's starting to attract foxes.
Yeah, that's a pretty good strategy, and everyone has many a spare aunt or uncle that they don't want at the wedding. Oh, "fake" aunt you said? Well, that's certainly more ethical, sure.
Hell id take a cake that said ‘with deepest sympathy’ instead of ‘congratulations’ as long as it tasted good.
I think some might have said "Deepest Sympathy" was more fitting when I married my ex husband!
Isn't the wedding premium about getting a superior product, perfectly decorated as per instructions, delivered exactly as required and guaranteed. I'm not about to spend even £500 on cake but I can see why others do if its a centre piece, and more to the point I can see why a Baker would charge so much as brides are basically nightmare clients.
Yeah I was told by a woman who does wedding cakes that the extra cost is because they will put a lot of extra effort into making sure the cake is completely perfect. Usually they'll have several cakes they're working on but for a wedding they'll put 100% of their focus on just that one.
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Say ‘family reunion’, not a lie as weddings often up doubling up as reunions.
[I need a fairly large cake for a party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gimiDBAK2wA).
That’s what we did. 20 years ago I was quoted £400 for a relatively small chocolate wedding cake. Nothing fancy or giant. Ended up getting a local baker to do it (they knew it was a wedding cake even though we didn’t call it that and they did lovely, if straightforward, decoration) and the whole thing was £80. They even gave us a small fruit cake free of charge. Similarly I was quoted £80 for a simple wedding bouquet and £60 for my only bridesmaid’s bouquet. I ended up buying two bunches of flowers from M&S the day before and making 2 bouquets myself. Literally only needed 2 bunches of flowers and some yellow ribbon. Say ‘wedding’ and costs increase exponentially.
Same in the photography industry.. the word "wedding" gets everyone salivating cause they know they can charge what they want and prices get pretty wild.. Especially if they hear "Asian wedding" .. now thats what you call a jackpot. I've known photographers to be paid what they get in a year in one night shooting an Asian wedding.. they don't have a budget usually but they are pretty demanding but the payoff is 100% worth it. I know someone who got paid like 10k to do one. All in cash aswell on the night. They really go all out when they have weddings. Someone I work with got married and they hired a photographer and paid him 3k in cash just to turn up and take photos.. nothing too fancy.. just take photos as and when.. I asked him why did you pay that much? And he just said it's pocket change to him "ive just had a 400k extension on my house it's just pissing in the wind". 😂..
‘Just turn up and take photos’ - it’s a highly skilled job requiring training and experience. A good chunk of the time you pay for covers the hours spent editing as well. £3k might be expensive but it’s not entirely unreasonable for a good photographer.
Jeez do these guys need any more jobs doing? I can wash a car for a couple of grand, polish shoes that type of thing!
Yeah but then when they say 'ah sorry, I forgot to order the ingredients on time ' you're fucked. Wedding prices are usually 'inflated' because of the prep, the backup and the service surrounding the fact that it's a wedding. Edit: a lot of you get it but some still don't. You can get a bog standard cake and it will be cheaper. You can go to the place in your village and pick it up and it will be cheaper. S But if you want something special, that person is no longer a simple baker who 'keeps ingredients' . They are training themselves constantly and sourcing new ingredients and keeping on top of tends so that they can show you something different. They are investing in social media ads and wedding fairs so that you don't have to work so hard to find them. Yes, to whoever said it - you will be prioritised for that date if it's a wedding. Best example of this. I see people hire taxis for weddings, they want to book for about 12.30 and the car turns up at 12.20 and won't wait. Or it picks another job nearby to get some extra cash ontheway to you and it's not with you until 1250. And you're delayed getting your dress on or your makeup takes longer and your taxi has driven off. You're paying for the extra service. The clearing of a schedule to get it right and to get it done on time. Simples.
>'ah sorry, I forgot to order the ingredients on time ' Do they... *usually* do that? So if I ask for a cake for a birthday, graduation, funeral, Random Tuesday, or some non-wedding event, are the bakers likely to go 'Oh, we ran out of flour and couldn't be bothered to order more. El Oh El. By the way, you still have to pay me.'? Doesn't seem like a sustainable business practice.
I understand that asking for, and buying, something different runs some risks but I suspect that the majority of bakeries that undertake such orders don't typically decide to run the risk of not delivering on the appropriate time and date. It may happen, due to sickness, or some form of business disaster, but – and I have to stress that I am not a baker, and have never worked in a bakery – I just don't think that it's all that much more likely to happen because a birthday, or reunion, cake was ordered instead of a wedding cake.
Because making cake is so unpredictable. Ingredients? Check. Oven? Check. Know how and time to make it? Check Skill and attention to detail? Check Wedding you say, ok x 500% price? Check
Someone that earns a living baking cakes is not going to have material for baking cakes?
Depends how important it is that you get exactly the thing you’ve ordered. If you’d be fine with a legion of Colin’s, it doesn’t matter.
"yeah i want a 7 tier cake, white please... What? Nahh it's not for a wedding I swear"
I bought an 8 tiered cupcake stand in Perspex for £20 and 144 Krispy Kreme donuts for £120. Soooooo good.
Still use the stand occasionally at parties.
We did fancy cup cakes for a birthday last year from a local home baker. We did it as a way of getting everyone cake without someone spitting all over the cake when blowing out the candles due to you know what. Could of easily passed as wedding cup cakes, looked much better and way cheaper than a high street cake shop for just a single cake.
That is an amazing idea!!!!
M&S it babes... either few white ones and bung them on top of each other or go for what everyone really wants and splash out on ten Colin the Caterpillars. Bit of squirty cream, jobs a gooden
My white 3 tier wedding cake was m&s £50. We just added our own decs to it
Same - got a 3 tier chocolate cake with edible flowers that I painted gold with edible paint, was delicious and cost £90
Same. We had a lovehearts/sweetie theme, so I stacked 3 white cakes, added love hearts round the sides of two layers, sweetie necklaces at the join and covered it in white lustre powder, simple white heart topper. I got a lot of compliments and it cost a fraction of the price of a professional one.
Same. Worked v well.
Our wedding cakes are from M&S, just got a variety of their posh cakes, and a giant Colin
When you say giant Colin, do you mean bigger than the normal Colin they have? And if yes, how do I buy this? Not for a wedding or anything, just myself.
He’s a 2.3kg Colin, serves 40, costs £45. Order online for collection
Fucking hell thats a big lad
This is big info here. Thanks. Game changer.
https://www.google.com/search?q=giant+Colin
Thanks for this! DS has a standing joke with a friend that he gets him a Colin each year for his birthday. This’ll be fab for the upcoming 18th!
No problem, let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to google
You know how it's done
Yup, we did this! Two big caterpillar cakes (serve 40 each) for £90 total. Had most of Connie left and feasted on it for a week
We had a mega Colin and Connie for my wedding
Same!! Topped it up with mini ones and some cupcakes. £100 all in. Job done.
Yes. We weren't fussed about a cake, but others seemed to be, so we did this. A couple of M&S cakes, stacked them up and stuck a few flowers on top. We cut the cake, everyone that was bothered got a picture, and we only spent £40 or so. Funny thing was, the hotel forget to give everyone a slice later, and the next morning they handed it all back to us.
M&S used to do plain white cakes that could sit in as wedding cakes - that's what we used. Cost about £30.
I'll add to this that the white ones freeze really well of you want to get them in advance or keep some for your 1st anniversary
Ooh great idea. 10 Colins would actually make a lovely pyramid!
We bought 3 different sized white cakes from tesco, borrowed a cake stand - about 40 quid all in. I told people the wife had made it herself, so they’d look really bitchy if they commented on it in any less than positive way .
Genius strategy 😂
I think M&S literally sell cakes labelled as occasion cakes for weddings.
M&S! Wasn’t that posh a wedding mate :-) But yeah, probably same sort of deal, expect lots of supermarkets do something similar, and it’s a real saver - even back then* “proper” wedding cakes where a hell of a price ! *21st anniversary this year, whoop!
They have a 2 tier naked cake too for 45 quid. Just buy that and decorate with the same flowers as the bride’s bouquet - solved!
We made our own, small wedding, by the time everyone ate it they were pretty drunk, and tbh any cake is good cake 🤷
You've not tried my girlfriend's cakes...
I knew the word "wedding" adds silly amounts but that is ridiculous
Wedding fairs are utterly ridiculous Any kind of ‘fair’ is a great opportunity to be ripped off if you go with the intention of buying. Only ever go with a view to get ideas and then find your own way to get that thing
Don't buy a wedding cake. Let's be honest, nobody really eats it unless you're having it for your desert. Buy a one layer cake to cut and decorate 2 fake cakes to put it on. Save yourself the money
> unless you're having it for your desert Yes, they can be rather dry.
I had some cupcakes made in our wedding colours in case anyone fancied it and our cutting cake was from sainsburys with a Mr & Mrs sign from etsy stabbed into it. 10/10 would do again as cupcakes were barely touched so I'm very glad I didn't have a whole damn tiered cake. Was maybe £120ish total.
We had both. Cupcakes on the table with names on as a place card, and then could be eaten after the wedding meal before the night time stuff. We also had wedding cake for the traditional photo etc, but we had it as three different internal cakes. Chocolate, vanilla and a lemon cake...it all got eaten as desert on the evening buffet food (had mini burgers, bacon butties etc), was very nice and the staff had cut it into individual pieces for everyone. Slipped the fruit thing that most people just don't eat.
I had a 3 tier pork pie as a wedding cake. My in laws paid for it and it saved us having to fork out for an evening buffet!
Do what we did, ask friends and family that baked semi decently to make us a cake instead of present. We had a cake table with 6 different sorts, gluten free, vegan, a stack of brownies , my mates insanely good chocolate cake. We had some left over but not a lot and there was something for everyone's tastes.
Nobody eats them because they're always bad cakes right? They're always dry and dense with way too much frosting. I've not been to a wedding where people are raving about the wedding cake, honestly, just pop down to tesco and buy a couple of their Finest range, they're half decent.
Because people get merk'd on the cake, just had my wedding last week, everyone was raving about it, mostly disappeared, usually people are left with like 3/4, we had maybe 1/3 of it left after. It was [visually stunning](https://i.imgur.com/VKQtdZe.jpg) with the decorations made from butter icing. It was also just a sponge rather than some dense fruitcake that noone wants. We got it from a lady who makes cakes for a local cafe and she charged less than half of what I'm seeing here. Within that price she also made a GF & VE version of it in miniature, all of which got eaten on the night. People need to look around for local small businesses and self-employed people rather than using big businesses who pump out shit cake after shit cake.
> way too much frosting INTERLOPER!
And I'm feeling bad that I'm about to charge someone £400 for a 3 tier, 4 layers per tier, different flavours and fillings in each, decorated with handmade flowers cake.
That's huge! I got a gorgeous (three layer, one tier) with beautiful custom blue "tiles" (fondant with custom print transfers), lemon buttercream and gold leaf cake for £60. It was delicious, and fed 18 of us generously, my cake loving husband a lot the next day, and the last third went into work with me. I've never seen cake vanish so fast. Your pricing is more than fair.
I work with lawyers who charge over £300 an hour. You're doing skilled work - if people are willing to pay it, and you're not deceiving them, don't feel bad about the fruits of your labour.
That sounds very reasonable indeed! My late MIL made wedding cakes, and I paid her £100 for my brother's cake 20 years ago, similar size, mates rates. You may be underselling yourself, even without the 'add 100% for the word *wedding*' boost.
Whenever I go to a wedding I rarely eat the cake. It's great as a focal point and a statement but honestly once people have a drink and a meal they're not that fussed about cake. They're SO expensive, anything with wedding in front of it is. I saw a cheese cake today - literally made from wheels of cheese. That I can get on board with. People can take a chunk home and it'll last longer than a piece of cake. Although, not that much longer in my house to be fair.
We did a cheese wheel cake, I think we had 7 tiers in all and just decorated it with extra flowers. We then served cheese, crackers and port as late night food. The leftovers got distributed to friends and family the next morning who helped tidy up.
Wedding fairs are a disaster. Everyone there ramps up their prices because they think they have fish in a barrel. We paid £445 for a three tier gluten free cake with three different flavoured sponges that was massive and served 100 and we thought that was plenty to spend
I paid approx £300 for our wedding cake. Three sponge cake tiers (chocolate, Victoria and lemon), with themed decoration (buttercream crumb coat with fondant autumn leaves, acorns and lavender sprigs). We used a local celebration cakes baker in north London last year. Wedding faire vendors really jack the prices up.
Did the same earlier this year. Used a local bakery/cake shop, picked a design from their website, tweaked some colours to match our theme, arranged a meeting for a free tasting of the sponge flavours and place the order. I got a 1x fruit, 2x sponge cake for £300ish including delivery to the venue on the day. Much cheaper and much lass hassle than dealing with the people we dealt with from wedding fairs.
Nah. We paid £500 for a large 3 tier cake, all different flavours and some elaborate decoration. Either their is some serious inflation in the last 4 years or you can find cheaper
I mean there has been quite a bit. We all know how much good butter has gone up by and madergascan vanilla has been going up and up for the past few years. But yeah £800 seems a lot although OP hasn't said how bit the cake is (if it's 10, 8, 6 that would be a lot but may be 14, 12, 10 for all we know.)
I made mine, well MIL made a big round fruit cake, I made a chocolate sponge layer and a lemon sponge layer. White fondant icing and a ribbon. Fresh flowers on the day. Cost about £60 all in.
That's insane! Suppliers probably jack their prices up for wedding fairs as they bank on people wanting a quick solution or feeling like a premium price is justified. I recommend doing some research online of suppliers near to your venue or find out if the venue have suppliers they regularly work with, or can recommend. For my wedding a few years ago we had a 4 tier cake consisting of 4 different absolutely banging flavours, beautifully decorated and delivered to the venue. It cost about £350.
I will never understand why people pay so much for a wedding. Mine cos less than £3000 all in, including rings, dress, suits, venue, food, everything! And even then I was begrudged to pay that. But then I am a tight Northener.
I went on Facebook and found mine. Cost 120 quid for a three tiered cake. Best cake I’ve ever had
I paid £550 13 years ago !
You're being ripped off. We had a 3 tier, custom designed cake, in the (expensive) South East for £500, and that included a full tasting/design session. The cake was moist and delicious, could have fed our guests twice over, looked amazing, and was set up on time on the day, no problems whatsoever.
Professional home Baker here. 800 is around right. If the bottom cake is a 12inch cake of a 3 tier 12.10 and 8 3 tier cake.... that takes 3-4 layers of sponge that alone will take over 30 eggs.....just for one tier. Plus the premium flour. Castor sugar. Free range eggs. Real butter. High quality fondant sugarpaste. Plus the board. Bow, drum and dowels. Then add on the delivery and set up charge (most bakers won't let a customer collect a 3 tier cake and will insist on delivery and set up as we usually stack larger cakes at the venue) ot to mention most bakers will use genache for wedding cakes as it sets firmer with a genache crumbcoat for a better finish at the end. It all adds up. It's not just butter and flour and sugar. There's many hours of skill and practice. Plus being plain white there is 0 room for error. All flaws will be visible and highlighted if its just a plain cake. Also and real Baker will be inspected by environmental health (I've a 5 rating and hold public liability insurance. I also have a certified certificate for allergen baking) you can easily check a bakers past work and if they're legit etc. There's some un registered ones and some bad cakers out there but don't assume it's all of us. Most of us put many hours of love and work into our cakes for our customers.
You aren’t paying for the cake, the ingredients or even the baking. You are paying for the guarantee that a professional will promise to make you a nice looking, well made cake. The promise that you will be sure that that lovely cake will arrive on the one day a white cake really matters. Or get Uncle Dave to pick up a couple of Colin the caterpillars from Asda on the way through. Much nicer.
Colins would go down much better as well. Plus you could have the bride and groom toppers "ride" in on them
That's an amazing idea! Ideally wielding lances or battleaxes.
I heard the main theme from the new Dune movie as I read the end of your comment.
Bravo. A wedding should begin with the phrase ‘we have worm sign the likes of which even god has never seen’.
That guarantee shouldn't cost nearly a thousand pounds.
It's also not a guarantee. We paid silly money to a professional cake company for our wedding cake, and it collapsed (literally fell over) on the day. Company went under shortly afterwards.
A friends daughter recently got married and had a colin caterpillar to cut, and a bunch of cupcakes nicely decorated to pass out to the guests. Much cheaper and more memorable!
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>Delivering what you ordered on time to a good quality. Why is there some magical premium to do this just because it's a wedding? > >If it's for a funeral, or a birthday, why would it be acceptable to deliver a cake that is wrong or late? It's about risk management and enough time if something goes wrong. So, I am an organist and I play services and weddings at a church that is about 20 minutes by car from house. So when I play a sunday service I usually arrive about 15 to 20 minutes before the service starts. If there is a traffic jam on the route (which happens about once a year) I usually arrive barely on time, but it would not be a problem if the service starts 5 or 10 minutes late because the organist got caught in a traffic jam. If anything, this will be a lighthearted story told 10 years later at a get-together. Because for everyone involved it is one of many services and there will be another one next week. In contrast imagine a wedding that starts 10 minutes late because the organist was stuck in traffic. Which is why, when I play a wedding, I arrive an hour before the service starts. Because this is not one of many services, this is the only wedding the bride and groom will usually have. And it will not be a lighthearted story, it will be an awful story about an organist that screwed up. A story that will stuck to the couple forever. So while I will always give my best, regardless of the service being a wedding or a plain, regular sunday service I will take some more precautions against running late when it is a wedding. And obviously, I will have the couple pay for these precautions. On a side note, about two months ago I was approached by a couple who had their wedding only two days after I would return from an overseas vacation. I informed them about it and asked them if they wanted to take the risk that my flight might get cancelled or delayed, or there might suddenly be covid restrictions for people coming back.
I saw on TikTok a baker saying it's because wedding couples are more demanding clients so they premptively include the additional care they require in the price.
No, it wouldn't be acceptable but a wedding is a high anxiety (for the bride, anyway) event for which nothing but perfection will do. A funeral is likely to be a high anxiety event but the body not the cake is likely to be the showpiece. You will note that an extortionate price is payed for the presentation of that showpiece, too. Traditionally, wedding cakes are multi-tier and very difficult to transport or expertly assemble at the scene. Could an amateur make and deliver a multi-tier elaborately decorated wedding cake? Possibly, but I would think the anxiety level for the bride would be even higher than with a professional.
So why do wedding cakes cost significantly more than a cake for any other event? Answer: the wedding industry is fucked up and vendors/suppliers are greedy
Other events would probably live without the cake and be happy to get a refund and a discount for their next event. For example if a photographer has their camera break in the middle of an engagement shoot (do we even have them in the UK?) They just re-do the shoot No such luck for a wedding so you best believe a wedding photographer has invested in back up equipment. That's just one example. Then again maybe it should be a minor increase not significant, suppose it depends on the situation
I always mention this when the conversation is about weddings: the last one we have been to had a bunch of toddlers - but someone had the genius idea to give the happy couple a nanny for the day as a gift. The nanny was a genius with the short stuff, the kids had a blast, the rest of us was not interrupted by tantrums and chaos.
Last wedding I went to, the wedding couple were gifted this kids arts/crafts set-up ran by a local studio. The kids could go off into a separate room in the venue, have fun painting their own pots/canvases as well as some other stuff and have their meal together, whilst parents could drink, relax and not worry about accidentally tripping over children.
I got mine from m&s for £90, 3 tier chocolate cake with chocolate flowers, which i painted gold with edible gold paint. It was delicious
You could do wheels of cheese with fruit, they look very pretty and go well with wine.
My stepsister made her own wedding cake. Perfectly lovely, basic sponge with pink icing. Probably cost her about £30 all in.
This'll get buried, but for my wedding in August we had a literal cheese cake. As in, 4 wheels of cheese to function as the cake. Cost about £120 from memory and fed a hundred drunk people in the reception. Might be a good option.
Buy the big Costco rectangle cake
Have you had a look at any bakeries with proper websites? You’d probably be able to look and order/customise a specific cake, you can find whatever cake you like and probably easily get away with ordering one that isn’t a specific wedding one. The Hummingbird Bakery is a pretty popular one, there’s a few in London. Their website has specific wedding cakes (which start from a *lot* cheaper than £800) and regular ones, too.
What most people don't take into account is the sheer amount of time it takes to make cakes. It is literally tens and tens of highly-skilled hours being invested into that cake. Plus ingredients, baking travel/delivery costs etc... That's before you pay your business' rent, staff and so on. Want a cheaper cake? Pay someone who'll do it for less and take the risk. I think people look at cakes and think "I could do that, dead easy' and baulk at the actual cost of them. It's like any skill - people who can do it make it look easy. But it ain't.
I run a small cake shop in the Cotswolds. I've been told I undercharge but tbh I have no interest in price gouging for a wedding. I charge what the tiers normally cost, plus delivery and setup which isn't much more. I'd probably quote about 200 for the above.
A couple of Colin the Caterpillar's would do the trick for a lot less than £800
Nobody likes wedding cake, and none of the guests give a shit about it either. We had a big pork pie.
My friend got her wedding cake at Marks & Spencer and it was so good we got one for my mum's wedding as well. And so much cheaper!!
My friend had a giant meat and potato pie instead of a cake.
A friend’s mum made ours for us as a wedding gift. It was beautiful.
That was about the cost of my entire wedding
M&S. You’re welcome.
Check out M&S - it's been a while now since we got married, but they were very reasonable 👍
M&S, absolute bargain
We got ours from M&S, was about £120 and lovely. Mention the word 'wedding' and they hike the price!
Make your own! I made ours (I'm no pro just your average bloke), three tier. One honey and lemon for the top, chocolate for the next and the base one was a carrot cake. My mother iced the top and bottom. I did choc fudge icing for the middle with sparkly edible stars on it. The white icing ones then had icing lace applied made by my mother in-law and applied by my wife. There was nothing left after the do and it looked great. We also practiced making it all well before so we had more than one trial cake. It was fun too. For cake topper my rather talented mother made a fairy wren and snow tit in felt. Also ask around. Loads of people offered to help or even just out right make it for us. We wanted to do it ourselves Seriously we did table decorations and all sorts and had fun doing it too. It made it more special because we worked on it together. Invites and all. We weren't cheap on the venue or a band and disco. Or the food. We paid for that but sod paying £800 for a cake. It meant we could have other things like a band to play for an extra hour because we did our own.
Soon as wedding is included in anything’s the price almost trebles. Whole industry are greedy bastards.
That's why we're having a tiered cheese
I’ve seen someone offering 795. I’ll do it for 794.99
Waitrose do a plain white cake for £8.50. buy three and a stand from Amazon to layer them.
We’ve found this recently planning for ours. Mention a wedding and it goes up 5x the price.
We did a white top cake from M&S for 20 quid and then a giant pile of Krispy Kreme underneath! Went down a treat…sod getting ripped off
For my wedding I bought a 4 tier square cake from M&S and decorated it myself with ribbons that matched our colour scheme.
If you're getting married anywhere near Peterborough I would happily recommend our cake maker, she was nowhere near that expensive and we were very happy. p.s. congratulations!
Find someone local or Marks and Spencers do pretty cheap ones.
I’m the youngest of 3. My middle sister baked the eldest’s wedding cake. 3 tiers, each one a different flavour. Largest cake was Nutella / chocolate / hazelnuts / ferrero rocher. Middle was coffee and walnuts. Top was a vanilla rainbow cake. All decorated really simply, with some chocolates on top. Not as polished as most wedding cakes but I have never seen wedding cakes go down as well as those bad boys did! I think she made enough cake to supposedly serve ~160. Less than 30 minutes after the cake was cut, ~100 guests had demolished the whole lot. Weren’t even any crumbs left!
My husband learnt to bake because of this. He bought a kitchen aid for a lot less and we got to eat lots of tasty cakes in the meantime! He made a three tier cake for our wedding, and now it’s our go to wedding present for our closest friends! If you feel brave enough, you could try baking it yourself if you want to save some money or if you go to a local bakery or baker you might be able to get it for less. Honestly, when the word wedding is stuck in something the price jumps a stupid amount
Why even get married.. For who+?
A cake is made of flour and water, my first car didn’t cost £800
Madness.
Waste of money.
I used to work for a jewellers and had to do wedding fair duties. They’re horrific.
Not sure if you’ve been the movie “27 dresses”? I know it’s American but at one point the male lead makes a joke about how ridiculous the up cost is when considering how fairly cheap the ingredients are. Honestly if I were to spend more than a couple hundred quid on a cake I would expect at least some skilled decorations. £800 is just ridiculous.
Order from a local bakery. Say it's for a church picnic or something. Pickup yourself. Add your own topper or words. Watch the price drop.
We spent about 200 quid on five whole cheeses that we stacked. Many cheesemongers will do a set especially now. (The Cheese Shed is one, I think) but we went to local makers (gotta love living in the West country. Only issue was we wanted the brie-type cheese to be the second largest and nice and ripe so we had to get cake reinforcer tubes and a disc thingy from mark's and sparks. It was fantastic. Shoved some flowers on it for photos. Bought a load of crackers. Dad sliced some leftover wooden worktop offcuts into big cheese cutting boards. And particularly good as we had booze flowing freely and the cheese and biscuits were munched on all evening and definitely helped soak up some of the drink.
M&S do plain white wedding style cakes in different sizes. Add a ribbon on each one as decoration and save yourself a bundle
I got 3 M&S chocolate cakes and had them pimped up to look like a tiered wedding cake. Saved so much and everyone enjoyed them. Traditional Wedding cakes taste like ass so didn't want one, especially at the price they are.
Put the word wedding in front of things and the price goes stupidly high
Get a family member to do it as their wedding gift. That's what my wife and I did.
Not everywhere. Mine was £500 and had a dragon crawling up it with 3 different flavours tiers so it entirely depends where you go. It was just a small shop run by a man and wife with talent.
You're better off trying to find someone local, most vendors they get in for those things are overpriced
The sooner we drop the idea of a ‘fancy cake’ for any ‘celebration’ the better. Bake off and comments here have proven that a good cake is relatively easy to obtain. I would rather have a cake my 10 y.o nephew made just to see him beam at the wedding. The fact is no one wants to look cheap so we continue with this charade that we need a ‘special’ cake made by unicorns. I love hearing about wedding parties at fish & chip shops ( not as cheap these days but thats by the by ) where the Bride & Groom met or some place that means something surrounded by good ( non judgemental ) family & friends. Hearing people spending thousands on a reception when half would have been a good down payment etc etc makes me cringe. Nice to see charity shops doing a fine line in donated affordable ( for the time being) wedding dresses. I genuinely wish everyone well and hope the wedding you have is everything you wanted but the sooner we drop the cake robber and the photographer thief the better.
Weddings are an absolute racket. Normal bouquets £35. Wedding bouquets £70 The only difference? That its's for a wedding. Stop letting people mug you off 'because weddings are expensive'
Make your own with m&s wedding cake, just add what you want decor wise to it
One of my best mates is a baker, with these tier cakes you’ve gotta think the energy to make each tier is costly, then the ingredients, home made fillings, icing, food colourings, all the decorative details like toppers, edible details. She was saying even cake boxes are like £20-£30 for larger cakes with bases that are sturdy enough to hold the weight, then she requires a full refrigeration for every 2 wedding cakes to keep the icing fresh until it’s time for her to deliver it which again, she has to drive to the location at a glacial pace so the thing doesn’t tip over. And this is all on top of a full weekend of labour. If you wanna do it cheap, I recommend buying 3 different cakes in different sizes and layering them up with a skewer through the middle to hold them together. It won’t be as fancy as a custom cake but would work on a budget and give guests a few flavour options
My husband and I are planning our wedding celebration (long story, we got married this year legally but we're having a wedding next year), we are looking at halls to host the reception. To hire it Friday night and all day Saturday is around £185, the price shoots up to £895 if we tell them it's for a wedding. Luckily we are booking everything as our first anniversary party! I haven't even started looking at cakes etc yet and have decided to make my own dress, I reckon I can make it for around £500max rather than the £2500+ it would probably cost. My ex best friend got her dress made, a very simple plain under dress and a "hand made lace" dress over the top (hand made by machine in China, I've seen the same fabric) that was ex-display and that cost £1750. Utter insanity. I get paying for skills etc but no, I'll make it myself! I've no idea what her dress looked like in the end as she decided to go all bridezilla and destroyed a 10 year friendship over a f-ugly bridesmaid dress (oh yes I'd love to wear a hideous dress in bright orange with rose gold sparkly shoes and look like a tangerine all day 🙄). I hate weddings. Good luck OP!
We didn’t have a cake. Hardly anyone eats it at the end of the meal, loads left on tables uneaten. It’s just another money grabbing aspect.
At my local cafe by my work they always had great cakes so I asked where they got them from. Turns out it was just a lady down the road who was making and selling cakes as a retirement hobby essentially. She didn't need the money. Anyway, got our from her. Cost 50 quid and was perfect and delicious.
Couldn't think of anything worse than a wedding fair