Bride asking me to stay for the entire wedding and cut the cake for her. Since I am not family related it would require my time, I bet I will enjoy it but it is my time. Did any of you had this and can share your opinion please? I see that the cutting fees at the locations vary from $1-$2 per serving, but seems kind of steep to me. What will you say?

I have stayed and served all my cakes except one, because it was the day after christmas and that was when we were celebrating.

It is usually apart of my service, depending on how big, how long the wedding is etc. hubby usually goes with me, we make a day of it and go out to eat or something to fill the time between cake drop off and serving time.

I usually get a minumum of 2 cake orderss some times more from serving. it is a great bride networking that is not tapped enough in my opinion. I also have had brides call a year or two later and say.. i remember you from cousin betsy's wedding and want you to do my cake.

Take lots of business cards I mean at least 100. it is embarrasing when you run out i know from experience. If the wedding goes over three hours.. I will charge a basic fee. It is not much, usually just enough to cover either gas or our lunch or dinner fees. I do it for the networking and the future orders.

don't charge per serving, charge per hour, and have a minimum that they'll get charged. I've seen as low as $20/hr and as much as $35 an hr. Yes it's networking, but you can't bank on getting another order for sitting around at a wedding. Just like going to bridal shows, it's more about networking with vendors and if you get an order from a bride it's bonus.

If you have to stay in the area between drop off and the reception then make sure you have your expenses covered for that. It's not just getting paid for being there, it's about making sure you're getting your time paid for loss orders. You could have taken on another wedding cake and been doing deliveries if you weren't sitting at the reception.(or waiting for it to start)

what leily said. they are paying for your time. ALL of your time. not just the time you have a knife in your hand but ALL of your time.

A price-per-serving works if the bride/groom is dealing with an inhouse caterer who is there anyway and needs to charge for the extra time the catering staff is pulled away from catering stuff to cut a cake, and to cover the cost of the plates, forks and other incidental expenses.

You are getting paid for your time. I always recommend at least $25/hr, 4 hr minimum. Yes, they WILL pay you to sit in the kitchen and read a book. You might even consider "door-to-door" which means they also pay for drive time. Look at it this way. If a business sends an employee to cut a cake, the employee will clock in at the shop, drive to the event, sit around for 4 hours, cut the cake, then drive back to the shop to clock out. You, the busienss owner will pay that employee for that time. ALL of that time and that includes drive time.

If/when you get pushback about how long it takes "jsut to cut a cake", you can point out that kids at McDonalds get paid when they are there, not just when they are saying "do you want fries with that."

Thank you ladies. All your advices are truly appreciated. I will ask her about how long would she think the whole thing would take. Because its on Saturday, I will need a babysitter for kids and I guess that would be taking in the consideration. Thank you very much!

Fortunately for me, in my city the cake vendor never cuts the cake. I know Indy cringes, but around here the caterer understands that it's just part of the their duties for the day. The caterer also knows to bring dessert plates and extra forks for cake.

If I had to stay and cut the cake, I'd have to take one to two orders less on the day. My average order is about $500, so my cutting charge would be $1K. Seriously.

I pay my babysitter $10 an hour so I would be adding that on to the hourly fee.
So if it were me: $25/hr fee + babysitter costs = $35/hr with a mininimum of 4 hours pay (whether I need to be there the whole four hours or not) so she is looking at at least an extra $140 to have the cake cut.

Make sure you get paid whenever the final payment for the cake is due. You do not want to be chasing someone for money at the reception.

I'm in a rural community. The town I live is in is 2500. It is customary around here for the bride's aunts, cousins, friends to cut the cake at the reception. Usually the bride asked four- two to cut and serve cake, one to serve punch and one to serve coffee....sometimes it's punch and the fourth one just keeps plates, forks, mints, etc supplied on the table as needed. Never been asked to cut a cake and the halls that do the food around here do not offer cake cutting serves.

I was just asked today, for the first time, if I would serve the cake. I was very thankful that I had seen on here the discussions about cake cutting fees. Thanks for all the input.

How badly do you want to be away from your family? Do it free!! If you DON"T want to be dragged away fro your family - charge! In other words.. how much is your time worth? I don;t care what you are doing.... cutting cake, painting the room or picking your nose.... how much is it worth for you to leave you family for that many hours?

I on;y stay and cut the cake when I am also the caterer for the event.

What if you are also a guest at the wedding? Do you still charge a fee then?

I am really anal about this subject. Real simple - when they start working for their companies for free (totally off the clock - stop what they are doing in the middle of having fun and do what ever it is they do for a living) -I will offer my services to them for free.

The one piece of advice I give my brides that I tell them is most important: don't ask your friends or family to work your wedding... its just rude. It's physically impossible to be a guest and a worker at the same time.

So, when I'm asked to do that... I ask them if they want me to be guest or a worker. I don't mind either way, l but I can't do both.

And I love it when I attend a party in which I did NOT supply the cake and it's assumed I'll cut it.. good one!!

Not of my real friends has ever asked me to work their event for free... I've offered, but have never been asked. A real friend would not ask you to do that.

This is probably a state-specific question, but has come up a few times for me lately - mainly the cake cutting fee at the venue has priced out the bride getting a cake and using the venue's dessert (they wanted $4/slice cake cutting fee ). It was suggested that I see if the venue would waive the fee if I cut the cake. I have not contacted the venue, but are there any liability issues to the venue for me, a non-employee of theirs, to be welding a knife and cutting cake? Just wondering if/when they say no what their possible reasons (ahem, excuses) would be.

Bear in mind that a cake "cutting" fee is not a fee for actually cutting the cake. It also covers the cost of the plates, forks, the dishwasher who washes the plates, the servers who might deliver and collect the plates directly from the table.

this is especially pertient if the cake is brought in from the outside. The venue is making NO money off of the cake but they are incurring the above expenses to cut-and-serve the cake.

As a caterer, let me battle the argument of "but they are there anyway". If my staff didnt' have to stop what they were doing to cut and serve a wedding cake that I didnt' make, then they'd be helping to clean up and load up after the buffet was done, so yes ... this *is* an extra expense for me that I would be justified to bill for.

Sometimes the cake "cutting" fee has nothing to do with "cutting" the cake.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FromScratchSF

This is probably a state-specific question, but has come up a few times for me lately - mainly the cake cutting fee at the venue has priced out the bride getting a cake and using the venue's dessert (they wanted $4/slice cake cutting fee ). It was suggested that I see if the venue would waive the fee if I cut the cake. I have not contacted the venue, but are there any liability issues to the venue for me, a non-employee of theirs, to be welding a knife and cutting cake? Just wondering if/when they say no what their possible reasons (ahem, excuses) would be.

Thank you ladies for bringing so many aspects of the situation, thats why one mind is good and two are better In my case, they didnt have any caterers, they are putting all together themselves (they are having Southern style barbecue and bar and such) and the question came just for a lack of any professional caterers to help them with cutting the cake. So as Debi said "the cake "cutting" fee has nothing to do with "cutting" the cake", I've should phrased my question "Cutting the cake fee"

I said it in my first post :They are my customers. And they already booked me and my services.