Despite my vow not to do wedding cakes (not now, anyway), I succumbed to flattery and will be doing table cakes for my DD's Sunday School teacher's third (or fourth?) wedding. I think she needs seven cakes and she wants each to be two tiers. I'm thinking of doing 6 and 9 inch tiers, yellow cake with whipped chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting. It's a very simple design of dots (the "Sparkling Champagne" cake from Wilton's Tiered Cakes book). I'm not sure what the topper will be - maybe fondant/gumpaste bows, maybe some kind of plaque with the bride & groom's names - the wedding's in 13 days and she still can't make up her mind about anything. In any event, I'm thinking of charging $75 per cake. Does that seem reasonable? I've never done a wedding cake before (centerpiece or otherwise), so I've kind of taken my regular prices & adjusted accordingly. I'd love any other tips you pros might have for me, too! Thanks,

Jackie

wow, 7 of those cakes would be enough for 300 people. is she expecting that many? i'd guess not, so i would do a 4 on a 7 or a 4 on an 8. much more reasonable amount of cake. but you should first find out how many people she is expecting and hten decide what size cakes to do. charge her per serving on those just as you would a traditional wedding cake. if you find mini cakes a pain to work with, then charge a little more per serving to do them. if i were doing those cakes, i'd charge about $500-550 for just the seven 4,8 cakes. (i estimate about 175 servings)

oh, and i should add that 75$ per 6/9 cake is way too low. i'd charge a total of about $880 for that much cake. (294 servings, x $3 per serving or $126 per cake)

I've actually posted something about this on my website's FAQ page to try to help educate brides on why this method is NOT cheaper (as fraudulently stated by wedding magz and websites).

Because when they have individual cakes on each table, they end up buying more cake than they need!!!!!

6 and 9, per the wilton wedding chart, will serve 44 guests. First, there is NO WAY you are getting 44 people at one table. My a la carte pricing is $2.50/serving, so 44 servings x 7 cakes = 308 servings x $2.50 = $770, or $110 per cake.

Plus the ganache charge. Plus the fondant work. Plus the fondant bows.

Remember, you have MORE baking time, more cardboards and boxes, the horrors of transporting that many cakes, longer set up time, and you're making 7 fondant bows instead of just one.

ALso remind the bride that she has to buy 7 cake cutting knives .... one for each table. And those run..... what? ...... $10-12 each?

So unless she wants 7 or 8 cupcakes on each table, be sure to educate her on how this method practically forces her to buy more cake than is needed and that is why she is paying way more for cake than she would if she bought a traditional wedding cake.

Thanks for your help. Indydebi, I think the bride's more interested in not "wasting" money for flowers than in saving money in general. Of course, I haven't given her a price yet, so we'll see . . .

Beccakelly, I think I'll go with your suggestion of 4 & 8 inches. She'll have too much cake, anyway, but she seems pretty set on the whole two-tier thing. (She's been listening to the country club's party coordinator a little too much!) I guess I was concerned that 4 & 8 wouldn't be big enough for a centerpiece, but she's only having 70 people or something like that!

Thanks again!!!

Um...I think it would be cheaper to have flower centerpieces than $75+ cakes on each table. It's either waste it on flowers or excess cake

I know flowers can be expensive but I found a fabulous company when I was planning my wedding [orchidsdirect.com] and was able to get orchids for about $1 a stem including shipping. I believe it was the most amazing find ever.

I think IndiDebi's idea of table cupcakes would be awesome.

Wilton Industries has a small cupcake tree that you can decorate and if you don't need so many cupcakes you can use the top for a beautiful edible topper?

Try talking her into some beautiful cupcake bouquets as centerpieces. THere have been some really pretty ones posted recently and a tutorial by cambo that shows just how easy they are to assemble.

With the right container and color choice they could be very elegant.
At $20 a pop she will be saving money and no left overs.


mommachris

Everyone mentioning "leftovers" is a very good point.

2 tiers x 7 tables = 14 cakes..... that will all be partially cut .... that will all have leftover cake ..... that will be VERY difficult to store for any length of time.

if she's only having 70 people and she's dead set on doing two tiered table cakes you could do a 6 inch cake with a cupcake on top! that will give her about 112 servings, (counting each cupcake as two servings, but if you want to count each CC as 1, then it would be 105 servings). still a little more cake than she needs, but i don't see anything wrong with just throwing out 30 servings worth of leftover cake. if she really wants two tiers and is willing to pay for it that is! that would take her price down to about $45-50 per table. just a thought!

I'm in the same boat! My bride wants 16 cakes, each to serve only 8. She wants them to be a 6" cake with b/c icing (robins egg blue) with swiss dots. On top of that, for her cake, she wants the top 2 tiers real cake and the bottom tier a fake cake She says she's very easy going and not picky or particular about the cake. YEAH RIGHT

Thanks indydebi, sounds easy enough to me!! I'll give it a go and let you know if I get the business

This is where I get stuck. I did a cake last week for a wedding that was expecting 70 people, adults and kids included. I did a 14 inch single layer, a 10 inch doucle layer stacked on the single. then 4 inch poles and then the 6 inch top cake. I also did 30 cupcakes and 1/2 sheet of chocolate cake. I only charged them 50.00 b/c they bought the supplies. But... I have been told that in this area 2.50 a slice is too much. I almost lost an order to WalMart........ They had the same amount of servings for 150.00. So.... I am doing a three tiered stacked cake and a 1/2 sheet to match for 170.00 that includes delivery and set up. The price works about to be about 1.25 per slice. I don't know what to think on this. I live in a county of about 38000 people with a median income.

Because there isn't anyone around here who can cut those itsy bitsy slices and I've been the guest on more than one occasion who hasn't gotten any cake because they ran out by the time they got to our table (with a cake obviously large enough to serve all of us)...

A 6" double-layer is what I use for table cakes. I charge $25/cake for rough iced bettercreme and $30/cake smooth iced (fondant or ABC) if they purchase as a larger package deal. Individually I charge $36/table cake minimum if they don't go for a package. For anything above a smooth coat (any piping), it's extra from there. I figure that the 6" double-layer serves realistically 8-10 per table thus you would only need 7-8 of them plus whatever they want for their pictures.

Now, that you're going for a tiered effect, do a 7" with a 4" on top of that. I'd also charge more simply based on the fact that it is more work, more fillings, borders, time, etc. so realistically $50-75 at least per table.

It sounds like you're dealing with someone you probably wouldn't have seeked out as a customer. I'd call and say that you need to have exactly what she's ordering firmed up by Thursday so you can purchase all of the materials necessary to make the cake and get payment to pay for all of this stuff. It's harsh, but you've got to get her pegged down on what she specifically wants and get paid for it!