How important is your wedding cake?

We got our cake for £150 coz I shopped around. Was getting quotes for 300 - 400 but am so happy with this one!!

That's quite neat with all the marshmallows tumbling down it. I hope it tastes as good as it looks!

One of the "NOT IMPORTANT" items i would say. I find it being just a "decoration" in the end as not many people eat the cake.

I love cake, so it was fairly important to us to have one. Do agree that they are usually overpriced though, but hopefully we will be getting maximum value from ours by serving it for dessert!

Personally for me, not overly important, i will be buying teh white rounds from asda and decorting it myself for a total of about £40. I do love to see a beautiful hand made cake if you can afford it but unfortunately we cant but i'm really not that fussed anyway.

I think it's very important to me, and I'd be gutted if I didn't get to do a cake cutting. Just like I'd be gutted if people didn't through confetti at us!

I'm not sure what we're doing yet. OH wants a traditional tiered cake, so cupcakes are out of the question unfortunately. I haven't looked into the price of cakes yet, but both my mum and my CBM have said they would make the cake, I just don't know how it would work with them setting it up on the day

It does make me chuckle how we are made to think that because a three tier wedding cake can cost an average of £200-£300, then £75 for three tiers from M&S suddenly becomes "good value"!!! It is not good value, it is just cheaper! It is still a plain white cake!!!

I never think with my wedding that I should have something, or that my day would mean any less if I didn't. Hitched is a wonderful place to share ideas, but that is all they are - ideas - it is not a definitive "you must have" list! I probably never would have thought of the photobooth idea without it!

As for suppliers posting on here - I find this very useful as I am sure many others do. I have found many of my bits through the suppliers on here or via their recommendations and advice. If you don't like it you don't have to read it!

I think its very interesting to hear everyones comments as for whoever said the tradition of a wedding cake being a myth that the wedding industry made up couldnt disagree more its written in hystory and was actually divised by when Roman Grooms used to break bread over their Bride to symbolize his dominence over her within the marriage just as women have envolved and become enpowered as equals the move to a wedding cake has too.

I do feel you get for what you pay for with anything but as for wedding cakes being 'over priced' they are not you are paying for someones skills and creativity and for something created just for you. I'm not sure how other companies work but I charge for the basic costs and the hours I have had to put in to it. Basic 3 tier cakes (plain white iced) will take about 2 days to do a typical non extravigent wedding cake would take between 2 to 3 days to create. You pay less is marks cos quiet frankly you get less they are smaller than created wedding cakes both in height and width and there portion sizing is all wrong on there website. Therefore when they say you can get 144 portions out of one of there 3 Tier sponges its just not true sponge is cut at 1x2" portions so actually you only get 72 portions not to metion the fact that they are only 2" in height instead of the standard 3" whereas fruit gets cut at 1x1" portions cos of the density of it therefore it goes further.

A cake is the centrepeice of the reception and I think most people want to see what the cake looks like when they get there as it is a attraction. I do struggle with the people saying that it's not worth the money yet will quite happily spend £300 to tie some organza round a charge (not slating it cos I love it). You might just eat the cake but you also just sit on a chair however to me BOTH are visual and add the occassion

At the end of the day it is 100% each to there own but to say handmade designer cakes are a rip off I think is a bit harsh

Obviously, I cant tell you exactly how she did it but it was all handpainted. Loved that cake.......I still go all gooey eyed when I see a pic of it!

Did you say it was handpainted?

Our cake is very important as I am making it myself and I get to show off how marvellous I am at making cakes! It ain't a wedding without a big slice of cake!

Love It!! What are you making ?

A wedding cake is important enough to me to have one but not important enough to spend hundreds of pounds on. I plan on buying some plain white iced sponge cakes and adding some ribbon and silk flowers. I'd rather spend the money on something else. Ideally I'd like to have one made but I'd rather save a few hundred quid.

Not that important to us really. Nice to have a picture of us cutting it, but we're determined not to spend hundreds of pounds on something that's just going to get eaten or left behind. We're lucky that a very talented friend of mine has just agreed to make ours - for free as a wedding present.

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After reading all of the above, I'm still going with my Marks and Sparks wedding cake...

Mooey80 I got married in 2004 (now divorced) and I did have a M&S cake and my MIL was a florist who done the flowers on it and it looked beautiful as back then I was only 21yrs old with a budget of £7000 had my reception in a hall and we done the Buffet all ourselves so I have nothing against them at all.

My sister had one too 4 yrs ago this was all before I started but M&S had to pay for a cake decorator overnight as they told us when we went to pick it up the day before but I had no probs with mine and neither did my friend who had one 4yrs ago to (3 weeks before my sisters wedding) lol

Apparently we are all allowed our own opinions provided we agree with yours?

I never said that did I.....

as per my last post I had an M&S cake at my wedding too and as per a previous post I also Love chair covers and am having them and totally appreciate the fact that the ironing, washing and setting up is a grueling task therefore I find the price reasonable I also think that £75 for a plain iced cake is a very reasonable price as breaking the price down it cost me more than that to buy everything to make one of my cakes where as places like M&S have a larger buying power hence reduced costing.

Breaking it down realistically just to produce 3 tiers of sponge costs

Cakes themselves around £25 (this includes Fillings) you then have the Icing which approx you would need about 3kg which is around £17, I think marks' also use marsipan which is around £15 boards and boxes would be another £10, equipment needed (2 smoothers) which is around £10, electric, overheads, time & Labour etc

It would take a whole day to produce a 3 tier cake start to finish in one go so to me I think that is fantastic value for money

There is no way on earth I could ever produce something at that price unless I was working for Free

You are comparing a mass produced supermarket cake to an individually made one.... there is no comparison.

I do not for a minute doubt the time and expense incurred in making these designer cakes, my dad's partner used to do it for a living so I am well aware. But as I do not consider the cake to be a crucial part of my day then I would not pay for one.

Again, my original point was aimed at M&S advertising a plain white sponge cake at £75 as 'reasonably priced'... when you can get a plain white iced fruit cake at Christmas from Asda for a hell of a lot less and once you have taken off the packaging and put a decoration on top - in my opinion, it is still a cake.

I agree that plain cakes with 'wedding' in the name seem to be more expensive than normal plain celebration cakes. We are getting a small plain white-iced fruit cake from the supermarket and decorating it with silk flowers and ribbon for the top tier. For the other tiers we are making different flavoured cupcakes ourselves and freezing them, so the day before we just have to ice them which, from the trials we've done so far, shouldn't take too long.

I agree with you on this I think there marketing as reasonably priced for them is wrong along with there portion sizing is completely up the wall to with massive companies they do buy into that whole put the word wedding in front and we'll charge you the 10x more than the amount we charge you for the same product everyday of the year ... The same with their plain cupcakes I find the price of them diabolical but then I find cake decorators who charge £3.50 + (and I know a few) ridiculous as to me I cant justify a cupcake at that price unless they were totally covered in intrique design but from what I have seen so far they aren't

Cake was fairly important to us. Like some people have said, they can be a decoration in their own right and also I love eating cake

I originally fell for a gorgeous 5-tier white chocolate "creation" costing £500. Even my H2B was prepared to part with that much money which tells you something as he's a tightarse!! (I do love him, but he is!) Oh and yes, we would have needed all 5 tiers as it has to feed 220 in the evening.

Anyway, I am glad we waited because I found a fantastic-looking cakemaker who is making exactly what we want, and delivering it, for under £300 which to me is a bargain. I costed up an M&S cake, bearing in mind we'd need 7 (!) cutting cakes on top of their 3-tier cake in order to feed everyone, and it didn't come in much cheaper PLUS we'd have had to collect it and decorate it all ourselves. But with this lady, we've got a 4-tier cake in exactly the flavours and allergy-requirements we want. (Tiers in ascending order: Chocolate fudge, vanilla, lemon, eggless... then a chocolate sponge cutting cake and a gluten-free cutting cake.)

I do think its hard isnt it as all you seem to do is look & shop around and after endless quotes, emails & Phonecalls you kinda get sick of it all in the end and it varies so much each time for exactly the same .... I am in the middle cos I totally get everyones comments as I used to think its just a cake its only since doing it I have a varied opinion but can understand still the otherside of the arguement...

Bit like some men really when they have the attitude towards weddings 'It's only one day' until they are planning that one day then it all changes LOL

Fantastic Caketastic Cakes, may I ask how much you charge per hour? Thanks x

Yeah of course

I charge £8 per hour when I am working on a cake

Once I work out my hours and my initial costing I tend to round it up or down to the nearest £5 rather than bother with silly pounds and pence I know from looking around at different companies tho I do think they charge Initial Basic Costings, Time & then a Profit Mark up on that as well which my OH says I should do but I told him that I'm fine with the way that it is at the moment and personally I feel my time is my profit we clash on this big time but he can run his business his way and I will run mine my way lol x

Yep. Tasted gorgeous too!