Do you charge different prices for wedding vs party cakes? For example...

10 inch round cake (basic decorations only)
wedding servings =38 (Wilton)
party servings =28

If you charge $3.00 per serving you would charge $114 for the wedding cake and only $84 if it were a party cake.

Just trying to understand the price per serving charge rationale. Am I missing something? This seems to be why people think wedding cakes are more expensive.

A lot of bakers do not have different prices or serving sizes for cakes. If you let the customer know what size the serving is, they can decide how many servings they want. They might feel people may or may not need more cake at a party. It does not make sense to me at least to have different party and wedding prices. Smart people will just order several party cakes for a wedding and save lots of money.

i don't have different charts...i go by wilton's wedding chart (1x2xheight) for all of my cakes. my cakes tend to be very tall, so people are still getting a lot of cake. i have charts listing the amount of servings on my website and i tell people, if you want bigger servings, feel free to order a bigger cake...but you'll be charged for it (in my sweetest southern accent) and i charge per serving no matter what the cake, so really there's no difference b/t what a wedding cake would cost and a party cake, if they had the same degree of difficulty. HTH

Some people do charge differently for wedding and occassion cakes, but most people don't. Occasion cakes can be just as complex as wedding cakes, so why short change your self. Most people have a base price for all cakes, and add to that for extra detail work.

If you do use the different charts, it's easy to confuse your self! Say a 10 inch cake costs $114. That's $3 a slice wedding size, and $4 (near enough) a slice party size. You charge more for the party serving because it's bigger. But it's still $114 cause that's the cost of the cake.

Pretty confident I have explained that badly! Essentially wedding cakes shouldn't be more expensive cause of the word 'wedding' unless you justify it with included delivery and stand hire.
xx

This is why I have a price for single tier cakes (aka party cakes) and then a different price for tiered cakes. I price my single cakes by the cake and give people an estimate of how many it will feed. I price my tiered cake per serving and use the wilton wedding chart for those.

In my area no one in a million years would pay $114 for a 10" round cake for a party. So I have my single cake prices set at about $1.50 a serving (yes I know too low) but that is just for a basic cake, everything added increases the price. My buttercream tiered cakes start at $2.50/serving.

Why would you have two different prices for the same cake? This just perpetuations the "myth" that if a bride uses "The W word" (wedding) then the price "gets jacked up".

A wedding serving is 8 cubic inches (1x2x4). A party serving is generally 12 cubic inches (1.5x2x4). If you go into a restaurant and order the pasta dish that has 50% more pasta, wouldn't you expect to pay more for it?

If you're giving 50% more cake per serving, ,then you should be charging 50% more per serving. i.e. $3/serving for wedding; $4.50/serving for party.

Then it just becomes semantics.

Here's a thread where I do the math and the price of the cake ends up the same: http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=683684&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=50&&start=15 (page 2 post)

You've done the same work with the same amount of cake. Why would you give a big discount just because they CALL it a birthday cake instead of a wedding cake.

I would tell customrs<, "This cake serves 28 to 38, depending on how you cut it. The price is the same.

Another thread with similar info: http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-666202-50.html+semantics

Thanks everyone. I didn't realize most of you were only using one serving size chart.

I guess I'll just stick to one chart and state the serving size. They can decide if they want more or less.