WEDDING CAKE PRICES

HOW MUCH DOES A WEDDING CAKE COST?
 
With so many different elements to consider there’s a world of choice when it comes to choosing your style of wedding cake, from a more simple rustic naked cake to a 4 or 5 tier extravagant cake dressed with hundreds of sugar flowers it’s only natural that it’s not only the size that will affect the final price. The location, expertise and experience of your cake artist will also affect the price too.
 
Choosing your wedding cake must surely be one of the most enjoyable parts of the wedding planning process. The designing, the choosing and of course the tasting! How much does a wedding cake actually cost though?
 
Here’s our guide to wedding cake prices, we go through the styles of wedding cake you can get for your budget, be it £100 or £1000.
 
 
HOW MUCH DO COUPLES SPEND ON THE CAKE?
 
Do you want your wedding cake to be a beautiful piece of edible art for all to be in awe over before the all important cake cutting photographs (but maybe doesn’t need to feed every single guest?) Or will you’ll be using it in place of a dessert for your guests, so definitely need a piece for everyone? Generally, it’s accepted that the cake should feed around 75% of your guests, as not everyone will want or have room for a piece, so bear this in mind when thinking of the size to choose.
 
According online reports the average spend on a wedding cake is around £350. Wedding budget experts advise that couples allocate approximately 5% of their whole wedding spend (not including honeymoon) on the wedding cake. This figure is obviously only a guideline, for instance big fans of cake (who isn’t?) may want to allocate more and if neither of you have a sweet tooth or don’t consider the wedding cake an important factor, then maybe you’d want to spend less than the advised 5%.
 
WHAT AFFECTS THE PRICE OF CAKE?
 
Size and portions
Consider that you are going to a café for a slice of cake, how much would you expect to spend? You’d be around to expect to spend around £4 - £6 depending on where in the country you were buying it. Multiply this by your number of guests that you want to serve. Then consider that this is just for a slice of cake, no decoration, no delivery, no set up, no design consultation from an experienced cake artist.
 
Region and venue location – As with many other things, London and the South East tend to have higher prices than those around the rest of the country, and the same is true for wedding cakes. Especially in Central London, where delivery, congestion charges and parking need to be considered.
Cake makers generally add a delivery cost based on a round trip so it may be worth looking at venues close to the venue rather than close to your home.
 
The Overall Design
The cake price will be reflective of the time it will take your cake artist to create. A design with many handmade sugar flowers, ruffles, stencilling, piping and other intricacies will take a great deal of time and will increase the cost of your cake. An experienced and competent cake artist can spend over an hour to make one sugar flower, so it’s only natural that this will add to the price. When buying a wedding cake you are paying for your cake artist’s time and skill.
 
Picasso was at a Paris market when an admirer approached and asked if he could do a quick sketch on a paper napkin for her.
Picasso politely agreed, promptly created a drawing, and handed back the napkin — but not before asking for a million Francs.
The lady was shocked: “How can you ask for so much? It took you five minutes to draw this!”
“No”, Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes.”
 
 
MATCHING YOUR CAKE TO YOUR BUDGET
 
Wedding Cakes Up to £150
For less than £100, you can expect a very simple single tier semi naked or naked or buttercream wedding. At this price you forgo the option for personalised details but it will give you a small, simple and rustic wedding cake to serve around 25 people. Fresh flowers can always be added to your cake (check with your florist for safety of flowers – many are toxic, including gypsophila)
 
Wedding Cakes for £150 – £300
In this bracket gives you a few more options, a more detailed single tier, maybe sugarpasted with some personalised detailing. Or a more simple two tier naked or buttercream design that would serve around 50 guests.
 
Wedding Cakes for £300 – £400
Spending around £400 would give you a simple, three tier cake to serve around 100 guests. At this price expect your cake to be covered in buttercream or semi naked rather than sugarpaste. Sugar flowers will add to this price so for floral decoration consider faux silk flowers or real flowers (again check with florist for safety)
 
Wedding Cakes for £450 – £600
Spending within this bracket your design options really open up and would  be the starting range for a 3 tier sugarpaste cake to serve around 80-100 guests. Expect to see more personalised design aspects on a cake at this price than in the lower price brackets.
 
Wedding Cakes for £700 – £800
At this budget your cake options become vast and couples can expect to have a bespoke wedding cake with intricate sugar work and decorated with sugar flowers. At this bracket expect at least a 3 or 4 tiered cake (each tier 6 inches tall) to serve around 80 - 100
 
Wedding Cakes for £800 – £1,000
Wedding cakes in this bracket will usually include some elaborate and labour intensive aspects to your design, such as sugar flower sprays, hand piping, hand-painted elements. At this price expect a four tier creation, or a more simply designed five tier. If a centrepiece wedding cake is something you are after then this is the budget to plug for. Wedding cakes in this bracket will be admired and remembered by all your guests and will really stand out as a piece of edible art at your reception, not to mention in your photographs.
 
A Note on Sugar Flowers
 
Sugar flowers take your cake artist hours and hours of work, they are not designed to be consumed as they contain internal wires for structure and are made of special sugar paste that sets hard and doesn’t taste as good as it looks! Therefore it is advised that you carefully take the sugarflowers from your cake before serving and keep them as a memento of your day.. Some couples choose to buy a glass dome to display their sugarflowers in their homes for many, many years to come – they won’t wilt and need no watering!

​Wedding Cake Portion Guide
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​There are two portion sizes we use as standard when referring to wedding cake servings, the first is a dessert portion of 2” x 1” x 3.5” slices, which is an ample and generous size. 

Top tip: Save some pennies and think about having a two course sit down meal and then incorporating the wedding cake as your dessert. 

​This serving size would be perfect for this idea, especially if you serve with ice-cream, fresh cream or a fruit coulis.

If you are planning on serving the cake after a three course sit down meal, you may be happy for your guests to have smaller finger slices with their coffees, in which case a finger coffee slice of 1”x 1”x 3.5” may be the right size for your guests. You will of course, get more portions from your cake if you choose this size. Be sure to let the venue, or who ever is cutting your cake what size you have chosen for your guests. 

Please note. Fruit cake portions are normally always cut into the smaller finger slices.

The below guide should give you a rough estimate of what your cake will provide, depending on what style of slice you choose.



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The Curious History of Wedding Cakes 

The wedding cake has a long tradition in which its history dates back to the Roman Empire. This was long before the cake was elaborately decorated with beautiful icing and bouquets.

The original wedding cake tradition was that the bride and groom would share a piece of a barley bread loaf and then the groom would break the rest over the head of the bride. The breaking of the bread was a symbol of the breaking of the bride’s virginal state and the groom’s dominance over her. Of course, this belief has long ago been lost as we moved into a more modern era of beliefs and wedding cakes.

In the era of Medieval England, cakes were often breads that were unsweetened. There are accounts of several of these cakes or sweet buns being stacked in front of the newlyweds. The couple is believed to have had to kiss over the pile of cakes in front of them. Which goes to show that wedding cupcake towers are still, very much. in keeping with history and tradition!

In the 17th century, there was a popular dish called a “Bride’s Pie” that was used in place of a cake. The pie was filled with sweet breads, mince pie or mutton pie. These pies would have a glass ring that would be hidden in the pie and the women who found it would be the next to be wed.Early cakes were simple single-tiered plum cakes, with some variations. There was also an unusual notion of sleeping with a piece of wedding cake underneath one's pillow which dates back as far as the 17th century and quite probably forms the basis for the tradition of giving cake as a gift. Legend has it that sleepers will dream of their future spouses if a piece of wedding cake is under their pillow. In the late 18th century this notion led to the curious tradition in which brides would pass tiny crumbs of wedding cake through their rings and then distribute them to guests who could, in turn, place them under their pillows. The custom was curtailed when brides began to get superstitious about taking their rings off after the ceremony.

The popularity of tiered wedding cakes came, legend has it, as a result of a baker’s apprentice in late 18th-century London. The story goes that William Rich set up as an apprentice in Ludgate hill and fell in love with his boss’s daughter. When he asked her to marry him he wanted to impress her with a large, beautiful cake and his inspiration came from the spire of St Bride’s church. However, there are no surviving records of this cake. Wedding cakes reached their high popularity point in the 1800’s in both Europe and the United States. A very famous wedding cake of this time period was that of Princess Louise, Queen Victoria’s daughter. Her cakes stood five feet high and weighed about 225 pounds. Another famous cake was that of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. Their cake stood nine feet high and weighed 500 pounds! The cake was four tiers and featured sugar replicas of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Palace and Balmoral Palace.

The multi-tiered cake was originally reserved for the English royalty. They would also use these cakes for christenings, as the wedding and christening events would take place very near each other. This fact rationalized the thought that all weddings should have three tiered cakes. The bottom tier was for the wedding reception, the second tier would be distributed amongst guests and the third tier would be for the christening. As the wedding and christening became disassociated with each other, the top tier was then saved by the bride and groom for their first anniversary. The top tier is now considered a nice reminder of their wedding day.

It was the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840 that really set the fashion for weddings – the dresses and cakes both became big and white as a norm. In the minds of most people, wedding cakes are supposed to be white. The symbolism attached to the colour white, makes explaining this tradition rather simple. White has always denoted purity, and it relates to white wedding cake icing that first appeared in Victorian times. Another way in which a white wedding cake relates to the symbol of purity, has its basis in the fact that the wedding cake was originally referred to as the bride's cake. This not only highlighted the bride as the central figure of the wedding, but also created a visual link between the bride and the cake.  Previous to Victorian times, most wedding cakes were also white, but not because of the symbolism. Ingredients were very difficult to come by, especially those required for icing. White icing required the use of only the finest refined sugar, so the whiter the cake, the more affluent the families appeared. A white wedding cake became an outward symbol of affluence. As time went on sugar became cheaper and it became much easier for working class families to imitate the weddings of the rich.But of course this affluence couldn’t last, and wartime rationing rather limited wedding cake options. During the Second World War there were strict rations so cakes were much smaller. The average person would have probably had some ingredients donated from friends and relations. Others used deceptive tricks so their cakes looked the part. Gravy browning made fruit cakes look richer or cardboard cakes were rented and the real, smaller cake was concealed inside.

Cake decorations also developed with the size and beauty of wedding cakes. Pillars were used in early-tiered wedding cakes as a way to support the many upper tiers. In order to keep a cake from sinking, the bakers began to harden the icing for support.

Cutting of the Cake Tradition.
Wedding cakes take centre stage in the traditional cake cutting ceremony, symbolically the first task that bride and groom perform jointly as husband and wife. This is one tradition that most of us have witnessed and wedding photographers have captured many times . The first piece of wedding cake is cut by the bride with the "help" of the groom. This task originally was delegated exclusively to the bride. It was she who cut the wedding cake for sharing with her guests. Distributing pieces of wedding cake to one's guests is a part of that tradition from the Roman Empire when guests clamored for the crumbs. But, as numbers of wedding party guests grew, so did the size of the wedding cake, making the distribution process impossible for the bride to undertake on her own. Wedding cake cutting became more difficult with early multi-tiered cakes, because the icing had to be hard enough to support the wedding cake's own weight. This made cutting the wedding cake a joint project. After the cake cutting ceremony, the couple proceed to feed one other from the first slice. This provides another lovely piece of symbolism, the mutual commitment of bride and groom to provide for one another.
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As the days get shorter and the wedding season madness of 2019 draws to a close I'm thinking back to all the wedding cake creations that left my kitchen this year and I lovingly waved a fond goodbye to over the summer.

It's been a whirlwind of a wedding season here. We've made wedding cakes of all sorts of colours and styles, from bold, modern and striking, to rustic naked and semi naked wedding cakes, to the romantic and floral. In particular, however, I noticed traditional white wedding cakes came up again and again. 

Shades of white for a wedding cake is so traditional, so timeless and so beautiful, maybe Meghan and Harry kicked this off when they chose a simple but stunning off white buttercream wedding cake for their wedding last year.

Anyway, I thought I'd showcase some of our white wedding cakes here.

Ten of our white wedding cakes - timeless, traditional and beautiful, to inspire and maybe give you some ideas for your big day. 

Flo x