Wedding cake cost

The one we were getting from M&S had a chocolate tier

But my h2b has decided it is too small and we know someone who can do a 5 tier one for the same price £200, so we're going with him now.

I was amazed at the difference in cost for cakes.

We want a quite simple 3 tier cake, 1 tier carrot, 1 vanilla and one lemon.

A really nice lady quoted us £390 for 3 tiers to feed 120 and another lady has quoted us £775 for the same thing!

My OH nearly choked on his cake!

We are lucky as OH aunt makes cakes and offered to do ours for us.
What about buying the fruit and sponge layer and then getting a cake maker to do a chocolate layer to match? This will definitely cut down costs!
I am sure a family member/friend will help set the cake up for you on the morning?
Good Luck I hope you get it sorted x

Won't let you? Hmm, I'm making my own cakes, along with 3 of my friends. We're not doing the whole tiered cake, just doing lots of normal 2-layer round and square cakes of different flavours. Then again, we're staying on-site at the venue for several days before the wedding in a place with a waaaay better kitchen than mine, so making them will be ok for us.

After the cheapest cakes I could find were coming in at almost 300 quid, I looked into purchasing 3 cakes from hummingbird bakery and arranging tiers, but wouldn't have been enough cake imo. Supplementing that with cupcakes would have come out to £150 or so. Also, I would ave been looking at doweling and covering the tiers in fondant to look uniform. I figured if I was going to be doing that I might as well just make the cakes myself, and then I realized that I really didn't care about the whole 'wedding cake' look of the thing, and so we're having 8-10 cakes (a LOT of baking in the two days prior to the wedding, but I love baking, so it'll be fine), and probably looking at spending less than £100 total.

We paid £300 to a very nice cake lady for a 4-tier cake plus two cutting cakes, to feed 200 people. This included decoration (with sugar orchids to match our flowers, ribbon and edible 'pearls'), delivery and set-up. We had chocolate, vanilla, lemon, gluten-free and eggless tiers. I didn't bother bargaining because frankly I thought it was a more than fair price.

I know we've got a photo of just the cake somewhere but I can't find it, so here's one with us in too:

Porsche, I thought about getting that cake, but I would still have to stack it myself and get it to the venue.

Venart, yes. She thinks I will be too stressed and won't be able to transport it. Anyway it still poses the problem of putting it all together and transporting it myself over an even longer distance as I would be moving it from coventry to preston rather than just PiL's or mum's house to the reception venue.

M&S do bar cakes in chocolate. Might be a waste, but could you have the cake on display using a sponge and fruit cakes, but cut up the bar cake in the back for guests to take? http://www.marksandspencer.com/Marks-and-Spencer-Cake-Cutting/dp/B004Z5FVC8?ie=UTF8&ref=sr_1_3&nodeId=80083031&sr=1-3&qid=1328020343&pf_rd_r=08WX7VWVJWBGBQKNZ0B6&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=80083031&pf_rd_p=215570647&pf_rd_s=related-items-3

An easier option than assembling a cake with pillars and rods, is to use a cake stand. You can hire these from shops or buy off ebay & they still give the effect of a 3 or 4 tiered cake. Whoever is putting it together just needs to sit the cakes on the stand, then add ribbon, flowers or other decoration if needed.

We are having a 4 tier cake made by a cake maker consisting of 2 x vanilla, lemon and chocolate. This will cost us $225 plus $25 for the diamante trim around the base of the ribbon.

I think this is a bargain and have had quotes which have been considerably more. Try out some local independant cake makers, ours was our regular birthday cake lady so I know they will be delicious.

DWC, have a look at yell.com, you'll find people local to you that do it from home as a sort of hobbie that dont have the overheads if they were to have a shop therefore they are able to pass the discount on to their customer. We did this, we paid £220 for a 3 tier sponge cake the top layer was lindt chocolate under a layer of icing, this included all the artificial roses which were of excellent qulaity,delivery and set up.

Teal, yes thats what MiL is suggesting. I really don't like those cake stands though. I wants the tiers set on top of each other. I guess i'm just going to have to suck it up aren't i and accept I will be at our reception at 10 am with the stupid cake.

Thanks claire. Will definitely consider it.

Deliciouswithchild.... I see you from Coventry, me too

I have a few friends in Coventry that make cakes as a hobby and use facebook to advertise maybe worth looking on there?

It would just be transporting it then if its already built ? they might be able to advise on the best way.

I can already tell you that transporting an already built cake would be perilous at best, disastrous at worst. I make a lot of cakes and they don't travel long distances well. I almost had a heart attack every time i heard my carefully baked and iced christmas cake sliding around inside the box when we travelled from cov to preston in december.

Thanks for the suggestion of facebook though. will have a look.

We had an M&S cake - 3 tiers (bottom and top fruit and middle sponge) together with 2 madeira, 2 chocolate and 1 fruit cutting cake bars and had the lot for under £100 (my best friend works for the company that makes the cakes). Just decorated it very simply with ribbon and brooches. Luckily we could take it to the venue the day before. I would definately recommend M&S cakes and, like someone else has said, perhaps you could ask someone you are relatively close too to take the cake to the venue.

Sal, I notice you've left the tiers on the cake boards. I was hoping to take them off the boards and assemble them that way. I'm not opposed to M&S cakes, we had for our engagement party. Its just the bother of assembling it that will annoy me.

I've tried my luck and emailed a local cake shop anyway saying what we want and saying our budget. The worst they will do is say no so we will see what happens.

Hi DWC, i didnt want the cake boards left on and mum had already put the dowels (sp!) in to support the weight of the cake. Never mind, i was the only one that noticed it and i think that was the only thing i was a teeny bit dissapointed with - a couple of cake boards!!!

Fingers crossed you will get what you want. x

I am have cupcakes, but would like a top cake of one maybe two tiers

For those of you who have ordered from M&S, can I ask how early you ordered and how long before the wedding should you request the cake for? Does it last well, i.e. could I pick it up say Wednesday for a Saturday wedding?

Thanks

Sammy, crikey yes. I picked ours up (albeit direct from the factory) on the Wednesday (wedding on the Saturday) and the fruit cakes had a sell by/eat by date of March/April time and the sponges something like end of December. Not that any of them lasted this long so yes, i would definately say they will be fine.

I'm sure they will last 3 days then! Thanks for replying!

I am from leamington Spa which is close by and my lady is very reasonable if you don't mind transporting the cake in Boxes yourself.

https://thecakeryleamington.co.uk/

she is very reasonable

Thanks jo jo but i really do think it just wouldn't survive the journey.

The one i had seen was nearly £700!! no way was i paying that much, so my fab boss did my 2 tier very brandy-ish nearly 2 bottles in it and the woman who decorated the cake did a choc sponge for me and all it cost was £80 bargain and all 3 tiers was finished within a 2 weeks of the wedding

http://www.classic-cakes.com Hope you're in the right area!

Sorry to crash the thread but those of you who have had M&S cakes, do all the flavours come with a layer of marzipan? This isn't clear on the website but some comments in the review section mentioned it. I'm planning on making my own cake but will get an M&S cake if my trial is a disaster, but I really don't like marzipan.

Deliciouswithchild - could you ask your venue/caterers/florist if they can assemble it for you?

Frandy, I hadn't thought of asking at the venue. I suppose the chef could do it. But then how would i know the chef was doing it and it was in safe hands so to speak, rather than just some young girl who is a waitress or bar staff being given the job to do quickly. What if it went wrong and the cake was ruined?!

Hi,

My original cake quote was three tiers in lemon chocolate and plain sponge covered in ivory icing sprayed with a pearlescent spray with a lace print all over and dusky pink roses for £320

I found a woman on ebay that has her own cake decorating buisness from home and is making the exact same cake if not exact nicer! for just £125!!!!

I don't think they'd ask an inexperienced member of staff but be specific and ask who would do it and if they've done it before so you aren't worrying about it.

Wow, I'm so glad I came across this thread. We've got a while to order our cake but had pretty much already decided on a place who were going to do it for £500. I never knew that M&S did wedding cakes and I think we might go order from them instead now Thank you ladies!

I suppose so. I will ask them if I end up going for M&S

A cake lady emailed me back last night after i said we were on a budget and said she will see what she can do.

Fruit cakes cost serious money to make - my 3 tier that I'm making will be about £69 with the quantities/ingredients from the Nigella Christmas book (all 3 of her sizes).

Yes my christmas cake cost me about £30 to make.

Anyway, had an email back. the only way she will do it in budget is to give me a dummy cake. Rubbish. I will make my own fruit cake for £30 and stick some iced styrofoam on top myself thanks very much. Not paying £180 quid for glorified styro foam.

M&S it is then.

If you read the reviews on the M&S website, it is very well wrapped to transport and very easy to stack, you don't even need the dowels. We needed to transport it too as getting married 70 miles away.