Buying Guide to Wedding Cakes
The first step is to browse through magazines or websites that can show you some of the most popular styles. Think about your wedding colors, how many guests will attend, your budget, and what you’d like the overall feel of your big day to be. This will help guide your decisions about a cake that’s just right for you.
Next stop: taste. Most traditional cakes are white or yellow with white icing; but don’t let that stop you from ordering chocolate, carrot, or a fruit flavored cake, if that’s what you’d prefer. Most bakeries will offer fruit fillings in one of more layers of your cake for an additional fee. You should also be aware that bakeries charge differently as far as decorating the cake. While some cake decorators will do whatever you desire for a set fee per tier, others will charge you extra for each icing rose, a complicated icing pattern such as basket-weave, or any additional icing colors.
Once you’ve decided on the basic look, feel, and taste you are after, it’s time to visit a bakery to look at their samples, photographs, and pricing. If you are having a rather large event, ask about purchasing sheet cakes to use for serving the guests instead of a tiered cake. Some bakeries are willing to make a Styrofoam or dummy cake for display, but can provide you with a more cost-efficient sheet cake for a fraction of the cost.
Tip: Remember to ask about additional fees like a delivery/setup cost and a cutting cost (if they provide someone to accompany and serve the cake). Otherwise, you will have to enlist able friends or family to do the task of cutting a tiered cake (not the easiest chore) on your wedding day.
You may need to put down a deposit to place your order-but don’t even think about doing so until you’ve asked for a sample. Yes, the best part about shopping for a wedding cake is tasting competitor’s products. A good bakery will offer you a sample of what you would be purchasing, either in the form of a small round cake, a single slice, or a cupcake. (Who hasn’t been to a wedding with a beautiful cake that went uneaten because it had a horrible flavor? Don’t chance it.) If the bakery is not willing to let you sample their goods, don’t place your order with them. Their cakes may not taste nearly as good as they look, and they might be novices in the business.
Once you feel comfortable placing an order, ask about ways to personalize your cake. Some couples choose to add silk or fresh flowers to the cake in lieu of icing roses or designs. But there is no limit to what you can add to your cake. Consider seashells (for a beach wedding), ribbon, buttons, candies, or just plain icing.
If you’re not a fan of the traditional couple-at-the-top-of-the-cake, monogram letters of the couple’s last name have become a popular trend. These monograms can be made of any substance imaginable, even chocolate.
You may wish to look into fondant icing, which can give your cake a very unique, sleek look. Fondant comes in any color of the
rainbow, and tastes and looks great on tiered cakes.
Another option is to have your cake layers stacked directly on top of each other, rather than being separate by columns, swans, etc. If you do choose columns, you may want to look into the clear ones that can be filled with your choice of colored icing, which can add a dramatic look to your cake. Think about which cake shape you’d prefer. Though round bases and layers are by far the most common, square and even heart-shaped cakes have become popular in recent years.
Remember that your wedding cake will be enjoyed by all of your guests who get to see and taste it. Prices may seem a bit steep (count on spending a couple dollars per guest per slice, on average), but if you shop (and taste) around, you too can find a wedding cake that you and your guests will remember fondly.
