I have a wedding cake to make in August. The bride has decided to have me make the roses instead of using fresh flowers (she has a very tight budget). I am using buttercream for frosting/decorating the cake. Should I use buttercream roses or royal icing roses? And, how much extra is usually charges for roses? Please help!!! Tracy

it all depends on how many roses you're going to have to make and how far in advance you want to make them. if you want to do them a couple of days in advance of decorating the cake i'd use royal. if it's a simple design with less than 20 roses on it then i'd use buttercream. but you'll also have to take into account of what the rest of the cake is going to be decorated in. swags, ruffles, cornelli lace could be time consuming if on a large cake. as far as how much to charge i've not a clue. doug will probably be able to help in the dept.

i am not sure which rose icing would be better. the only thought i have is complexity and time constraints. if you have time to be patient with applying bc roses as they can be delicate and need to be toothpicked if they are cascading and if the design is complex and time does not allow, then royal may be better as the roses dry hard, you can handle them and place them on the cake and not have to worry about smashing them, and you can attach them with icing.
as far as cost goes, i too have no idea. personally, i would probably charge more for RI roses because it requires another type of icing.
HTH

I make all of my roses from BC. Make them a day or two ahead of time and let them air dry --- not frozen!---air dried! You can handle them VERY easily. I've never had to toothpick a rose in place. I just apply a blop of bc icing on the backside of the rose to act as a glue to hold it in place. See my square basketweave with lavender roses pic ..... all roses are BC and are held in place by icing.

Edited to add: I don't charge extra for BC roses. First, because I've no idea how many I'm gonna use until the cake is done. Second, I don't charge extra for icing, for borders, etc., so why would I charge extra for roses? To me, it's part of the decorated cake, which is what the bride is paying for.

i agree with indydebi - i don't charge for the buttercream work. this might be different if you had a bride that wanted a couple hundred - but in all reality that would fall into my usual way of pricing - the more extravagant = the higher the cost.

are you comfortable making bc roses? i guess that would play a role in your choice.

Okay, she has decided to go with silk flowers. Thanks for the suggestions, comments. In the future, I will figure roses into the cost of my cakes unless there are a lot of them. Tracy