It seems a lot of my friends are getting engaged and married lately. Darn, that makes me feel old lol 😆 One question you might ask if you’re planning a wedding is how much money to spend on a cake 😀 So here’s a budgeting guide for wedding cakes.
Some people over estimate how much cake they actually need. This often leads to a lot of it being left over. Proper planning can reduce wasted food and money 🙂 From what I’ve heard the general rule is each finger slice of cake can cost between $2 to $5. This is for a typical buttercream or fondant wedding cake with vanilla icing. However larger cakes with 3 more more tiers can cost up to $8 per slice because stacking becomes more difficult and more work goes into transportation. So make sure to budget accordingly to avoid walking on thin icing later 😀
To give a rough estimate using the numbers above, a wedding cake for a small reception of 25 people should cost around $150. A cake for 100 would be about $500. And for 200 people it would be $1,200. Simply extrapolate these numbers if you gateau-ver 200 guests 😀 These estimates will get you a pretty decent cake and should be enough for most couples.
However there is always a range of options you can choose from, so ask around and sponge off your friends for ideas 🙂 High end specialty cake makers that can add exotic ingredients or wedge in 😀 additional services can charge $10/slice or more. The cake at Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding in 2011 was $80,000, and looked absolutely stunning!
Then there’s the other 8 tiered wedding cake made earlier this year by a bakery in Chester, England that was decorated with 4,000 diamonds and valued at £34 million ($54 million USD) Erm…Yeah, that’s a bit outside of my price range 😕 But I’m sure there are fruit cakes out there who would be happy to pay for it 😀
The average wedding cake in 2013 is around $400 to $500. No one should get a rise out of that figure because that’s actually a pretty good value considering the entire cost of getting married. This year the average cost of a wedding is about $32,000 according to a recent survey by Weddingbells magazine, and bakeries want a slice of that action 😀 For affordability comparison the median household income in Vancouver is around $67,000 🙂
My wedding cake 8 years ago was $125 but it was sponsored by my father. 🙂 And I think the wedding cake ranges now is thrice amount from my cake before.
The cost of weddings in general is also higher than 8 years ago. Good thing you got married early. You saved a lot of money 🙂 Brides and grooms today just seem to want bigger and better things 😉
I got 3 non-wedding cakes for my wedding (I told the bakery it was for a family event) because days before, another bakery wouldn’t sell me a regular cake once I told them I’m having a wedding.
They probably charge more if a cake is labeled as a wedding cake rather than just a regular one for an event. Smart of you to just buy regular cakes. Saves you the premium, and I bet they taste is the same 🙂
Our cake was around $250 and it fed close to 300 people. We paid less because we took a risk and went with a vendor who had only done a couple weddings. Her work was fantastic. Of course it could have turned out to be a disaster too.
Wow, large reception Brian. Either you or your partner must be some kind of famous lol. Even more surprising is you were able to get a cake for that price. That’s less than $1/slice 😀 Glad it worked out for you guys. Sometimes it pays to go with a less established bakery. Like Phil’s comment below suggests, even a student can create an articulate piece of art with the right dedication and passion.
Back in 2000, we asked our extended family prior to our wedding if they knew or could recommend a cake maker. Interestingly we found asking the question quite fruitful and found someone in the family knew some going to through school as a pastry maker, and on weekends made cakes for events and worked part-time at the Chateau Laurier. Long story short, she offered to make our wedding cake as part of a school project she needed to do, showing her skills so long as we could provide her professionally shot pictures of it as part of our wedding. So our cake was fully edible (real lemon filling), with outstanding hand crafted and coloured, intricate sugar flowers flowing cascading down one of the sides… Cost to us free! …well we paid her $200 because it really was the focal point of our small wedding, and could not see her not paid for the 50+hrs of work she put into making and assembling the cake . We still have most of the sugar flowers in a display case to this day. We never got a real quote for it so I have no idea what it should have cost us, but… Read more »
Awesome story 🙂 Sounds like it was a win-win situation for everyone. I once considered going into culinary school, but I don’t have a lot of will power so I decided not to enroll because if I were surrounded by food all day I’d get so fat 😛 After all, you know what they say about a moment on the lips haha 😀
I think once the word “wedding” is tacked on there, the price goes up 300%.
Yeah, and consumers somehow have it in their heads that anything associated with “wedding” should be more expensive.
I haven’t had the opportunity to have a wedding cake yet 😉 I kind of like the idea of having wedding cupcakes actually…
That’s a creative idea 🙂 You can customize them with different toppings or hide surprises in some for a few lucky guests to find. I’ve seen wedding cupcakes stacked on a tiered stand so they form the shape of one big wedding cake :0)
A lot of couples are being creative and cost effective lately. There are so many ways to save on cake. I know a couple who ordered a single layer of cake to be cut and then gave out cupcakes to the guests. Other couples also realize that the cake is not really something to spend more on.
I’m happy to serve cupcakes at my wedding any time 🙂 I think another way to save money on a wedding is to grow some of your own flowers if you have the means to do so. But it will take a lot of preparation and planning before hand.