First of all, congratulations on the engagement! Second of all, it’s time to talk cake! Your wedding cake is the centerpiece decor of the reception so it’s pretty important. But before you choose your cake, you need to do these things first.
1. Pick Your Venue
Your venue will play a huge part in what your cake will be like. Determine if it will be indoors or outdoors. The location at the venue where you want the cake table to be can be important too. So can the shape of the table and even the height of the building.
2. Keep the Season in Mind
The season can influence what is on your cake (the decorations) as well as what it’s made out of. If your wedding cake is outdoors in the direct summer sunlight for example, you may want to opt for a fondant covered cake with fresh flowers as opposed to buttercream icing that will melt and attract insects.
3. Decide on Your Theme
From your colors to your decor or overall theme, you want to decide on all of this before ordering your cake. You want a cake that will go seamlessly with your theme, plus you want to be able to bring your chosen color scheme to your baker (hint: the free paint chips at the painting department in stores like Walmart or Home Depot are perfect for this).
4. Choose Your Dress
Your dress can play a part in your cake style too. If it is off white (highly recommended if you have a warm skin tone fyi), you will want your icing to be off white too so that your dress doesn’t appear yellowed in pictures. And vice versa, you’ll want white icing with a white dress so the cake doesn’t yellowed in front of your dress. The design on your dress can also play into how you might like your cake to be decorated.
5. Find a Topper
Browse the internet (Etsy and Amazon are both awesome for this) or local wedding shops for your cake topper. What your topper looks like or even weighs can influence the design of your cake.
6. Number Your Guests
If you’re inviting only a handful of close family and friends, you might want a simple 2-tier cake. Or if you’re inviting the whole town, you might want a more elaborate 5-tier cake. The number of guests you have may determine the size of your cake. Also, don’t forget to include an extra top tier if you want to save it for your first wedding anniversary!
7. Settle on Your Budget
After you know how many guests you’re having and how many servings you’ll need, you can decide on a budget. Wedding cakes usually cost more than your average cake, so keep that in mind. Typically I recommend budgeting anywhere from $5 per serving to $18 per serving. Remember that the fancier and more elaborate your cake (and the more tiers), the more expensive.
8. Schedule Your Tasting
This is optional but oh so fun! Schedule your cake tasting with me and I give you a set of 6 cupcakes with icing and fillings of your choice, 2 forks, 2 napkins, a scoring sheet (to help you narrow down your favorites), plus a few more bits of paperwork to streamline the process and make it easier to select your cake. Oh–you also get a voucher that applies the cost of the tasting towards your wedding cake!
9. Set Up a Consultation
My consultations are usually done online via Facebook Messenger, text, or even email, but it can also be done in person. This consultation is fun and helps me determine exactly how you want your cake to look and taste. One thing I do ask during this consultation is that you keep an open mind. I have made many cakes before so I know what works and what doesn’t, especially for certain environments or for certain techniques. So if I have recommendations, please keep an open mind to them!
10. Plan the Delivery Day
After your cake is made it will need to be delivered to your venue. This is often done the day of the wedding, before the wedding happens. I’ll need to know details on where to enter (such as a back entrance), whether there will be a kitchen handy (this is helpful for assembling the tiers as I often bring the cake in pieces then stack it at the venue–makes transportation easier and safer). One thing to keep in mind is that because I run under cottage law, I can deliver your cake to your venue and set it up, but I am not allowed to cut it for you (that falls under catering, which I am not licensed for…rules, rules, rules). So you can either have your food caterer cut it for you or you can assign a guest or family member to do it. I will have a cutting guide ready for whoever cuts it when I deliver the cake (it can also be emailed or messaged beforehand if you ask me).
Bonus: Decide on Other Treats
In my bakery, I create almost anything cake or cookie. I can do decorated cookies, cake pops, cakesicles, cake donuts, drop cookies, cupcakes. So if you want to do a trendy dessert table, I could probably hook you up with all or most of the treats for it! Just ask and I’ll see what I can do.
