Am Shocked...Wedding Cake - with Flash

The cheapest friend of a friend quote I had was £90... for 3 tiers, white iced sponge

That seems rediculous. I would certainly shop around.

£300 is a lot of money for a cake that is relatively plain. Ours is £200 and we have a lot of detail on it plus we have had personal toppers made. I know she is your friend but I would defo shop around .

Surely it's just the ingredients and then a bit extra for time? Seems awfully steep to me if it's mate's rates x

My friend did our cake at cost price and it came in at £80 for 100 cupcakes, including the fact that she'd made them dairy-free and gluten-free, with frosting and edible glitter stars on each one.

I know it's a totally different style of cake, but your quote seems excessive.

My 4 tier cake with different flavour sponges and one allergy specific tier only cost £260 - inc decoration and delivery too!

Those cala lillies look tricky ! Couldn't you buy an M and S cake and have her just decorate it ? That does seem alot of money ! We are paying that for a professional for a cake with MASSES of detail !

Offer to buy the ingredients for her lol !

That is a bit steep if it is just the cost of making it it i.e ingredients and gas/electricity to bake it. I would shop around rather than pay it just to avoid offending her. Just explain that it is over your budget for an iced sponge cake but thanks for offering.

Lovely cake by the way.

How much !!! Thats ridiculous. I would just say that is out of our budget but thank you its lovely x otherwise you are going to end up paying a fortune for a cake when you originally wanted a cheaper one, have you considered the asda/ m n s cakes ? xx

I think it is expensive. I am buying mine from marks for £199,kind of similiar design...ish

Agree that it's extortionate! We're getting a 4-tier cake with 2 extra cutting cakes (2 of the cakes/tiers are allergy-specific) to feed 200 people for £280 inc. delivery and set-up!! With no discount!

Was just about to say the same thing , the marks one is beautiful and they have other designs plus chocolate or get some plain ones and decorate with robbon and fresh flowers xx

OMG!

Ask how much it would be without the calla lillies because you could buy artificial callas instead of sugar paste. I got a VERY good deal on my cake because I ordered it in advance and got a discount but this cost us £200 . The same cake designer charges £300 now I think but that's 4 years on. Your friend is taking the mickey sorry to say. I would have expected a price of about £80 for mates rates as the ingredients for a cake are her only expensive and I would have thought a 'cost price' mates rate excluded labour.

my sister made this cake for us and charged for the ingredients , she charged us £80 .the only problem i had was it look feck all like the cake i asked her to make lol

I am having 4 tiers with iced flowers on the top reasonably plain 4 different flavours and mine is £280

No Way!! im doing something similar for a friend and it wont be anymore then £100!! its 3 plain cakes!!!!!!!!!! the claa lillies arnt even fiddly as they are quite large so god knows what 'materials' shes using to make it cost 300quid!

That doesn't sound like mates rates at all, and more like the full whack that a professional would charge. You can buy really really nice plain 3 wedding cakes from M&S from £80.00. I've tasted at few at various weddings and they are really very good. I'd echo what someone else said and ask ker to decorate it instead.

I also don't think you should be embarassed about telling her that her costs are out of your budget. If you've received cheaper quotes from professional cake makers, I'd be tempted to tell her that too!

Been to a wedding where this was the wedding cake and it was lovely.

TBH it sounds like she just doesn't want the job. I'm a pastry chef and even if you had an alcohol and fruit laden 3 tier cake it would not cost anything like £300 for the ingredients. The rest of it is just sugar paste or mexican paste modelling and the sugar paste is cheap as chips. It really is the time and effort that you normally pay for when buying a wedding cake like that. I would do something like that at "mates' rates" for about £100/£150

The cake in my avatar is costing us £170, all different flavoured layers and thats not mates rates. She's having a laugh!

Love it!!! Haha!

I really like that, the lillies would look fab. my friend is making ours and is only charging us for the ingrediants. not too sure yet as we have two cakes in mind but cant imagine it will cost anymore than £150 for 4 tiers xxx

It's definitely too much. You could do a DIY cake which would look just as good as that for less than £100

? thats a joke surely???!!!! Ridiculous! I thought it said £20 at first and thought you had a lovely friend! Whats she making it out of? Gold??!

Is it because of the time it takes to make the flowers??

I have no idea how long it takes to make those things, although I would have thought if it took hours and hours and she was charging you mates rates she might not pay herself so much for the time ☹️

I would probably expect to pay about £300 for that cake (no more though), IF I was going to a professional cake maker who was not a friend.

I think that if this person is a good friend of yours, then yes, she is taking the michael just a little bit. If I do cakes for friends then I would charge them what it cost me to make the cake and put it together - I would never charge for my time (that would be the present!). For a sponge, I reckon the ingredients for a 3 tier cake would probably come in under £100, you're talking about not only the physical ingredients to make the cakes, but also the fondant icing (which you need quite a lot of and isn't cheap, cake boards, ribbons...and and then sugarcraft paste to make the flowers which again can be expensive, and as those are large cala lillies they would use quite a lot.

There's no way that even if this was a fruit cake with alcohol soaked fruit and a marzipan layer under the icing that it would cost £300 just to get the ingretiends and stuff to make and put together the cake! Your friend is charging for her time which is fair enough, but she shouldn't make it sound like she's doing you a favour. Either that or I'd hate to find out what she charges her average 'off the street' punter!

This has got me to thinking about how much it has cost to make my cake.....it's been a joint effort between me, my mum and my MiL2B but MiL2B paid for the cake ingredients and mum has paid for the rest.....

I'm sorry to say that you friend is/was totally ripping you off!

I still think that is overpriced for a plain 3 tier white sponge cake, even with those flowers... she is making money out of you when she said she wouldn't.

I think as others have said that is a pro-price for an amatuer cake maker (I am not sure if she is or isn't)

Pro prices are inclusive of all the overheads that come with being a pro. Insurance, Health and Hygeine certs etc.

My OH makes cakes and has made a few wedding ones and I know from personal experience how much time they can take. (they have to be perfect) And how expensive they can be. My OH made the cake for my brothers wedding and he offered to pay the cost price. So actually what she spent, I think she spent around £50ish.

See cake above.

There are some downsides to getting someone you know make a cake. The Health and Hygeine certs for one. (what if someone gets food poisoning?) and what happens if someone drops the cake.

Like I did! The one above was dropped by me when setting up. ?

With a bit of luck my OH had brought more than enough stuff to repair any damage before any noticed. But if it had been un-repairable who would they have complained to? I could apologise but couldn't in any way offer any compensation other than the cost price, that certainly would not have made up for the heartache of not having a wedding cake.

I would say your friend is probably too nervous to make your wedding cake for you. It can be a lot of pressure and expectation on a novice cake maker. I know my OH really does feel the pressure when making them for friends and family. She is probably just giving you that price to put you off, hoping you will go down the pro route.

I bet i could get it cheaper than that.

We brouht our cake before i found out my OH's cousin does it for a living! she is doind a friend off another wedding site one which she was quoted £390 and is doing it for £230!

Not mate rates if you ask me!

What a lovely cake!

But re: health & hygiene certs - I spoke to a friend who owns and runs a very successful cafe about h&h certs as I am thinking of starting a cake business and was worried about what I would need in this area. She told me that legally, I wouldn't need any health & hygiene certs at all.

Hmmm.....does anyone else know anything about this?

PS X