Wedding Cake decisions

I am having M&S..just the plain classic cakes. I thought it was going to cost about £100 (bargain), but it's actually going to cost near on £200 because of dimensions. The small top teir is absolutely TINY! Could probably get the bride on top, but that's it! They have extremely good reviews taste wise, just be wary of the sizing! ?

Do you have any friends or family who are good at baking and could make you a cake?

Or depending on the kind of wedding you're having, you could have a cake table instead and ask a few people to bring a different cake each.

We are having M&S and have had them at a couple of weddings and they've been lovely so this surprised me.

Other options we looked at were quite expensive which is why we have gone down this route, if someone can make you one that would be even better i would say

Do you definitely want a traditional wedding cake? Alternatives include cupcakes or having a dessert table - we went to a wedding with a dessert table at the weekend and it was amazing, I enjoyed it way more than I've ever enjoyed wedding cake (and my wedding cake was very good cake). You could ask your friends and family to each make something?

Hiya

Just thought I'd share our cake related tip, we have gone with our local bakery which is in the middle of the two price ranges so approx £180 for 100 cupcakes and a 8" top tier. I know it can depend on where you live as to whether you have a bakery locally but when I mentioned it to a friend she hadn't considered it as an option. They're used to making cakes and don't seem to market themselves to get the 'wedding' business even though they do celebration cakes.

Hope this helps

Hey, Thanks for posting this - we're in a similar boat. I have a gluten free diet, so am really reluctant to spend loads of a wedding cake that I can't even have, and plus every wedding we've been to, I'm never that impressed with the cake.

Our plan was to go for the M&S ones, so am a little surprised to hear you were disappointed with them. They do a gluten free one, so had planned on us having that as the tiny weeny top tier, just for me and any other gluten-free guests. However, it's still looking at costing about £200 which I was a little surprised at - doesn't really make it the 'cheap' option.

My idea was to maybe have the layer we cut, then the others as 'fake' layers, and then maybe just get some cheaper tray bakes for serving - OH is really not keen on this idea, but my argument is it saves us a lot of money, and plus everyone loves tray bakes don't they?!

I second the local baker option. We got two quotes, one for £175 and I've for £180 for a 3 tier sponge cake with butter cream icing to serve 80 (top tier is 6 inches).

A lot of the time, the thing that costs the most with a wedding cake is the decoration. Have you considered a "naked cake"? Or a plain iced cake, which you could then add a few flowers to? It's definitely worth talking to a few bakers to see what they can offer - mine can do gluten free cakes that taste so amazing that guests wouldn't notice the difference!