How
To Save Money On Your Wedding Cake
- by KissMeGoodnight.com
Few jobs within the wedding planning process
are as much fun as planning your wedding cake. Scouting out
cake bakers, flipping through their glossy pages of masterpiece
confections, and tasting little samples of wedding cake to
find the right flavors has to be one of the most enjoyable
parts of the process. The prices, though, can make that entire
sticky sweet icing sink to the bottom of your stomach.
Wedding
cakes are big business these days, with some bakers
charging $1,000 or more for the most beautiful of cake designs.
The most lovely, architecturally sound cakes piped to lacy
perfection can cost more than your first car. But it is worth
it, because the right cake baker can make a world of difference
in the appearance, taste, and cost of your cake. So invest
some time in scouting out the best cake baker for you.
You might choose to hire
the professional at the bakery where
your family has gone for special family cakes for years. You
know they make great desserts, so you trust them to create
the cake of your dreams. Add this well-known professional to
your list of contenders, subjecting this baker to the same
kind of interview process you'll use for other bakers. After
all, making a wedding cake is an art of its own, and even though
you know your favorite bakery makes a mean French roll and
a cannoli to die for, you will need to be sure that their wedding
cake will meet the high standards you expect for a purchase
of this magnitude.
Your other contenders might come from recommendations from
recently married friends, your coordinator, and recent wedding
guests who rave about a cake they've just enjoyed at one of
their friend's weddings. Just ask for a referral to the baker
in question.
Those structured wedding cakes with four balancing layers
and miles of piped-on icing in intricate patterns always cost
more than a pretty, stacked cake with pristine white frosting
and fresh flowers as decor. With cakes, you will always pay
more for the amount of time and effort your baker spends on
the design. So keep your choice simple and elegant, pass up
those rolled fondant covers and the sugar-paste, hand-rolled
flowers and cherubs. Your guests will be just as thrilled by
the sight of your beautiful cake cascading with flowers as
they will at a cake that looks like the Taj Mahal. Keep it
simple, and your price tag will be simpler as well.
You might want to reconsider offering a wedding cake whose
tiers balance on pedestals. These designs can cost more, and
they're trickier for shipment, arrangement, and stability throughout
the reception especially if yours is an outdoor reception where
rising temperatures could cause melting and tipping of your
cake. Choose instead to have the layers rest directly on top
of one another for a more sound structure.
Since the greatest
expense with wedding cakes is the time
it takes to decorate them, why not order a plain round or sheet
cake and the decorating yourself? Some brides do have the time
and talent to actually bake the cake on their own or have a
relative do it, but I find that it's not too much of an expense
to get a professionally made sheet cake and do the labor-intensive
accents yourself for far, far less. If you'd like to decorate
your own wedding cake, at a savings of up to
50% depending upon your choices, you have several options:
- Visit
a florist to find out which fresh flowers are safe to use
as decor on wedding cakes. Then place an order for a
selection of fresh flowers to be picked up and arranged on
the cake on the day of the wedding.
- Take
a cake-decorating course at a local adult night school or
culinary school to learn how to pipe sugar-frosting accents
onto your cake, create lovely flowers or pearl drop designs,
and master other decorating methods.
- Ask
a friend with proven cake-decorating skills to perform her
artistry on your cake as her wedding gift to you.
- Forget
the piped-sugar roses or rolled fondant sculptures and decorate
a plain store-bought cake with thoroughly washed
and dried objects that fit your wedding theme. Some ideas:
seashells, mini conch shells, starfish, crystal wedding bells,
porcelain figurines, and even flags from your country of heritage.
These personal touches are very inexpensive and make great
conversation pieces for your guests.
- Decorate
a plain, store-bought cake with your favorite candies, chocolates,
or even inexpensive chocolate-dipped fruit.
The cost for this might be $20 to $40, rather than $100 and
up (way up!) for a standard wedding cake.
Click
here for the ultimate wedding planning guide.
It answers over 250 of your top questions, 150 cost saving tips and
everything you could possible stress over is resolved. Simple
website, but very popular. It's my KissMeGoodnight recommendation.
Are
you planning a wedding on a very tight budget? I've got a
solution for you. Click here. It's also a KissMeGoodnight
recommendation.
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by KissMeGoodnight.com
: 2007
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