Oct 15, 20213 min read

Wedding Cake Prices Explained

When you’re planning your wedding people often think that services cost more just because of the word “wedding” – I understand, I thought the same when I was a bride. BUT as a supplier, I can tell you that’s not the case.

It is true that your wedding cake can cost more than a birthday cake, but that’s not for the sake of it, I promise.

My starting price for single tier 8” cake, for example, is the same regardless of occasion, but there are so many extra elements involved in the process of a wedding cake that increase this cost beyond this.

So let’s look at what’s involved in a wedding cake and how price is calculated…

Ingredients – this forms the very basic cost, starting with flour, eggs, butter and sugar, any sugarpaste , fillings etc.

Equipment/tools – tiered cakes especially require extra care and attention as well as expertise to ensure they are structurally sound and safe for your whole day. Using the right boards and dowels is essential!

Time – how long does it take the maker to create your cake. And this isn’t just the bake or decorating time as there is a lot more time spent to consider. Your wedding process will include consultation, prior to booking with quotes and invoicing, 1:1 consultation time, preparing your sample bakes, researching designs, the design itself, making specialist decorations such as sugar flowers, liaising with your venue and other suppliers where necessary, preparing your cake for delivery, the delivery itself, setting up at your venue. Oh and don’t get me started on all the cleaning time!

Consultations – This is an extension of the time factor, but an important one to elaborate on. When you book a birthday cake you will go through a similar enquiry process of giving your date, portion numbers and an initial style/theme idea. The baker will quote, deposit will be paid and then it’s over to the baker to create the cake for collection on the agreed date. For a wedding cake, there is so much more consultation in between your enquiry and delivery.

The main consultation with me is your final design consultation, where we sit down together for about an hour, sometimes more, to look at all of your wedding elements, from stationary, flowers, colours etc, look at cake styles you like, and I design something for you to give you a cake personal and unique to you. This consultation also includes a wedding cake sample box, with 6 different flavours of cake for you to enjoy. So in terms of time, there is the consultation time itself, plus time preparing your samples. There is generally also a lot more consultation time outside of this throughout your planning and also with your other suppliers. This step is crucial in your wedding cake process, and is such an enjoyable stage in your wedding planning that it must not be skipped!

Delivery and set up – another time factor and something that most non-wedding cakes don’t incur simply because they are usually collected by the client. I deliver all cakes of 3 tiers or more, no matter what the celebration. Tiered cakes need extra care, attention and expertise to ensure they are structurally safe, and they’re also really heavy! I deliver all wedding cakes, no matter the size, to your venue and spend the time on site to ensure your cake looks it’s best ahead of your special day. Afterall, you should be enjoying your day preparations and not worrying about collecting a cake or how to set it up correctly.

Other costs bakers must consider are any other overheads – equipment, utilities cost, insurance, fuel, training, advertising, website costs and so on. You may wonder why this would be included in your wedding cake cost, but remember these are costs involved in running a business and if they are not covered there is no business to run, so a small portion of these costs must be covered in each order, whatever the occasion.

So as you can see, there is so much beyond the basics of eggs, butter, flour and sugar. Please do not despair though as I will always work with you to understand your dream cake and how we can achieve this within your budget.