Has anyone kept track of how many wedding/grooms cakes you did for 2006?
my answer:
I just counted and we had 72 "paid in full" weddings on the books that I kept the order forms in my bucket for 2006. Alot of those also had a grooms cake with it and I did not count the grooms or back-up cakes.
mpc
For those of you who do this as a living I am always happy to hear that your businesses are thriving and you are doing lots of cakes. For me who only does 3 or 4 wedding cakes per year, that is plenty for me. I love doing them but I still find the delivery and set up to be stressful and am always so happy to hear back that they loved the cake, it tasted great and best of all, it didn't fall over! 
Yes Shirley I know what you mean about stressing out about wedding cakes but as you do more that disappears somewhat as you seem to know where you are going. I do still stress out a little if I have more than one to do a week end and I really will have to learn to say no.
Over 2006 I did a total of 15 wedding cakes and 7 of them were in December.
I started this as a hobby but it has just escalated, especially since I got my website up and running. And I am supposed to be retired!
I have done 2 wedding cakes already this year. They are sitting here ready to be collected, one for tomorrow Friday and one for Saturday.
I prefer to do birthday and novelty cakes as they are not so stressful.
I am not really a business and I just do it from home and have taken over one of the bedrooms to use just for this. My little private haven. It's just me so if anything goes wrong I have to take the blame. So far no catastropes and hope there won't be any. Just perhaps cakes moving on the boards but none toppling down yet. Touch wood! Love to hear from other CCr's.
i had very few weeks were i didn't have a wedding cake...
there were a few when i had 2-3.
so i'm guessing i musta had about 50.
this year i'm hoping to step out in faith and take all the orders that come in...
i turned some down because i was overbooked with party cakes...
and gave quite a few "fussy" cakes to a few of the home decorators in the area.
and alot of weeks i just felt too burnt out to do more than one, but i'm thinking i just didn't plan my time out well....doing every cake the "day of" the wedding....
it just hit me watching my hero duff;....they certainly don't do them all in one day.
WHAT AN EPIPHANY!...(my blonde is showing) 
little cake it is a good idea to keep the wedding cakes and you can increase your price if you start getting overload.
This must be when I decide it's time to increase prices.
mpc
oh littlecakes, nooooo do not do the wedding cakes in one day! that would cause burn out...the stress level would be sooo much higher. do like duff, and others, and bake one day, and decorate another. do it in steps and enjoy your day.
I only did two wedding cakes last year. No one knew that I do cakes....but that all changed after doing the bridal show in oct. I already have 8 wedding cakes booked for 2007!!! soooo excited about that.
so, mypastrychef, how the heck did you do 72 wedding cakes? that blows my mind....and secretely excites me as a personal goal. do you have a shop in a busy place, or are you located from home? do you advertise? how long have you been in business?
also, I have another question...about vacations. do you block off time your going on vacation, or do you see when you are free and go then? I get so excited that someone wants me for their wedding cake that I say "yes, I am available that date" and vacations for us have to be during the summer because of kids in school...but that seems to be the busy season for weddings. just wondering how you do vacations...I need to start planning ours. we always go to branson mo. because it's only 4 hours away, and there is something for everyone in our family to do.
mypastrychef, are you planning on taking on even more orders this year? do you have staff, or are you a one women show?
thanks for all your incites.
melody
Thanks for this thread, made me go and update my files!
I had a total of 26 wedding cakes this year, and this was my first official wedding season, so I guess that's not too bad
I'm only counting the wedding cakes, not all the other special occasion cakes etc.
so, mypastrychef, how the heck did you do 72 wedding cakes? that blows my mind....and secretely excites me as a personal goal. do you have a shop in a busy place, or are you located from home? do you advertise? how long have you been in business?
also, I have another question...about vacations. do you block off time your going on vacation,
mypastrychef, are you planning on taking on even more orders this year? do you have staff, or are you a one women show?
thanks for all your incites.
melody
Yes I have a shop in a secluded side street.
I recently started advertising but still have more word of mouth
We have been in business for 11 years.
My last real vacation was 1999 for 2 wks. We take a couple days here and there throughout the year. Some successfully block out time but we haven't planned for that.
I hope to make more wedding cakes this year. With those 72 orders I'd say 90% had a grooms cake to go with it. That does not include all the tiered birthday cakes or sculpted and sheet cakes.
My daughter and I work the cake end and my husband does the wholesale bread business. We are run ragged and really need to add someone else to clean or help someway.
I know 72 weddings may sound like alot, but there are others on this forum that have done way more than me. I had to check because I was thinking we didn't do too many wedding cakes. I was surprised. I also found that the average is around $500.
I have already increased the prices for this year.
nglez09... THANK YOU!
mpc
mypastrychef, I would check into hiring someone to help clean up. not sure of all the rules of having an employee, I think that get to be a pain...and expensive to pay in taxes and soc.sec. and all that. what about looking for someone to work for cash? like I said, I am not sure about all the rules and laws and insurance issues with having an employee....would like to know, because I may get big enough to need to hire someone eventually. I'm really dreaming now. haha
wouldn't it be nice to pay someone to come in and clean up after you? wow. that would be awsome.
melody
I did 11 wedding cakes last year. That's not including any groom's cakes and other special occasion cakes. My "goal" for 2007 is 25 wedding cakes. Now that I'm legal, I'm pursuing every advertising form that I can as far as networking, holding tasting open houses and such. My updated total for weddings scheduled this year stands at 5 with 4 tastings coming up this month; as well as, my first open house that is being advertised heavily by others that I'm partnered with in the wedding business. I'm really excited and anticipating BIG things for '07 for all of us!!!
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