I have been asked to do my first wedding cake - and not sure how much to charge her. Her budget is not very big and she wants to have a cake like this (red velvet & yellow cake). Thanks for any feedback!!

I forgot to add that she needs it to serve at least 50 people

It depends on what you feel your time, experience, and materials are worth. I have been working on a fee for mine and came up with a flat rate depemnding on the type of cake and how much work is involved. I bake from scratch and take all my costs for that into consideration, check out what others in the area might be charging and how much time is involved for me to make the cake from start to finish.

I cannot give you a set price, but most people I have researched in my area would charge by the slice at around $3-$5 for a wedding cake.

Hope that helps some...

That cake will serve more than 50...looks like a 10" round, 8" square, 6" round which would be 82 servings.

Will you be making the flowers or using silk? Those flowers would take time and cutters if you don't have them already.

The other thing is, you'll have to transport assembled, do you have room in your vehicle and are you confident enough with the support system that you use to do that?

I made my friend's wedding cake for $100 mostly because I wanted to be able to say I'd made a wedding cake for someone. The $100 didn't quite cover the supplies and ingredients and the cake was a ton of work. I probably would have charged a stranger about $400 for the same cake (if I sold cakes).

(sorry) depending

I am planning on using silk flowers - and I am kind of in the same boat as Texas_Rose was....when she asked, i jumped at the chance to do a wedding cake because she started out with a two tier heart shaped red velvet cake with butter cream and a couple of roses on it..........but as you can see, it turned into much more than that!

Thanks for your help ladies

can't help you but WOW what a pretty cake!

Round cake on bottom with square cake on top does not fit the 2 inch graduation thing we can go by with all the same shape cakes--that would have to be about a 6 to 7 inch square to fit within the 10" so comfy.

I would do a 10x6x5. maybe 10x6x4.

This would result in about 60 servings give or take.

And same price as has been mentioned plus a little bit more for the flowers is how I would do it.

It is going to be hard to come up with only 50 (or slightly over) servings for a 3 tier cake.
Take out your pans and see what small size sq fits on a round and what tiny round pan do you have to make the top tier?
An 8" sq - if I remember right - is too big to fit on a 10" round.
Consider using a styrofoam sq. A 12" round will give you plenty of servings based on the industry standard of a serving being 1x2x4.
As for pricing no less than $3-4 per serving. Maybe add another $10-15 for the swag and flowers. Oh, and if you do use styro still charge about $2-3 for how many servings one would get out of it - I think it's 25 servings for an 8" sq.
Sooooooo if you use a 12 R; 8 sq; and 5 R the price should be somewhere in the range of $200-250.

It's a beautiful cake! I would price each of those flowers separately if it were me.

I would go more on the range of $500 to $650. Usually if they dont have the budget I move them to something
that goes more to what they can pay for. Is not fair your work has to suffer cause they dont have the budget.
Teach your clients to go for what they cant buy or you will end up loosing money.
Edna

Wow its a beautiful cake........I WOULD LISTEN TO TONEDNA MYSELF

Thanks so much for all of your help

$6 per serving plus the flowers.

Edna, how do you make your customers overspend on their budget? I have recently lost a perspective customer as the bride set her budget really low, I tried to accomadate and reduce my price but she wanted it ridiculusly low. In the end she found a bakers that would do her wedding cake really cheap. Her budget was £200. I quoted £240 with the delivery fee. The cake was worth much more, around £300 but I reduced the price. Her fiance later enquired about a wedding cake at a bakers near his office and they were selling a 3 tiered cake for just £100! I couldn't compete with that and there was no way I would have brought my price down that low, not worth the effort. I was really excited about getting my first customer, now I feel hopeless in getting customers.

I don't think it's a case of getting them to overspend, but more of showing them what your cake is worth and the bride making a decision of what's important to her. She might budget $500 for a dress, but when she sees THE dress .... with a pricetag of $850 .... many find a way to get THE dress.

My first question, when they give a really low number, is "How did you come up with that number?" If it was pulled from certain parts of their body, then that's when you have a problem because it means they've done NO research and have NO idea what things cost. Those are the biggest challenges.

Also, are you ready for the pain this cake will be, especially since you are new to the wedding cake process? This is NOT an easy cake to make- there is no grace with that fondant, and squares are more difficult sometimes to cover than round. There are no do-dads, scrolls, or ANYTHING except a swag and flowers. Almost EVERY flaw will show up- even lint! I would do as they say and if she wants this cake, then do most of it in fake cake! Also, charge her for that extra time it will take to get the thing close to perfect. Not to group everyone in the same boat, but sometimes the cheapest brides are the ones that complain the loudest! And if she does, it will not be her fault if you agree to charge her pennies for it!

It really depends on what is important to the bride. I spent more on my cake than on my dress, because I wanted a cake that was better than something I could do myself (wasn't going to put myself through the stress of making my own cake). I had a look I wanted (gumpaste replica of my bouquet as the topper with a fondant ribbon draped down the tiers that matched bridesmaids' dresses) and wanted the cake to taste awesome, too and was willing to pay for these things. The dress? didn't care about it being a designer dress at all. Just wanted something that made me feel pretty. Dress-$400 Cake-$550 (note: this was in 2003).

Some brides don't care as much about the cake, what's imporant to them is having a designer dress, or a live band, or a sit-down seven course dinner, or what ever it is that makes their wedding special to them. If the bride doesn't care about the cake, you might not get that order, because a big box store cookie-cutter cake is fine with them.


Then you have the brides that are just clueless about what things cost. Those can be harder to deal with because they have a *look* in mind but want to pay peanuts for diamonds. Chances are, if they find someone to do the cake they have in mind for the price they want to pay, you'll end up seeing the cake on Cake Wrecks.

Here is a 6" round on an 8" square, and a 6" square on an 8" round. You can see how one config works fine, and the other one does not.

Ignore the water spots.

Can anyone tell me what the sizes of those layers are in the photo?

lol as you can see, I didnt read the latest posts.........so you think 12,8 and 6?

lol OMG..............is that really going to be hard? this is what I have hanging on my fridge to make for my own birthday this week.........except I will change from white to pink rose on cake, and maybe use white drapes...never did drapes and I am doing gumpaste roses for first time........everyone told me to challenge myself.yikes sounds like I may have a disaster birthday cake...............so I am confused..what size square on top of the 12 inch round?

Since we're in the subject of pricing, I have this very important question,
What about non-wedding tiered cakes? If that was a birthday cake? In May I made a 3 tiered cake for my daughter because I wanted to practice and covered it in fondant. It was a star shape pan and 8" & 6" rounds. Someone asked me how much something like that would cost, I pointed out that it was fondant, and the decorations on it too, I said for sure over a hundred. I'm sure they thought it was a lot.
I've noticed that on the Wilton cake dec books, they give you the break down for how many party servings, and how many wedding servings. ei. an 8" round gives you 20 party serv. or 24 wedding serv. I know I spent my time on my daughters, so even if it's non-wedding cake a lot of cakes can take alot of work- right ladies? just look at all the cakes here at CC.
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