$12.50 per slice for cake!!!! What??!!!

[kate.com]

My place is charging $6 per slice for really simple and I think that is high. No decor included. I am thinking of skipping the cake and doing something else.

[sunsetbride1]

Mine is included in my package for up to a certain number of ppl (can't remember right now how many). But, $12.50 per slice seems like a lot of $$ for a cake!

[JBinjour]

Wow, that's steep. My cake was $250 and it served 150-175 guests.

[kerryjbrown]

I was quoted from 3 different places 5-5.50 per slice plus deliver (50 or 75) and detail work (about $100). So I am ending up about $375 for 40 people, 3 tier cake (would be less, but I wanted 3 and not 2 tiers). I was told by someone to be prepared for my cake to be $700...glad they were wrong. Good Luck

[poohshek]

Is the price quote per slice or per serving?

 

A friend of mine told me it is important to inquire about serving size since some baker treats a slice (e.g. 1 inch wide on the circumference of a round cake) as 3 servings.

 

I am with you all ladies about the pricing for wedding cakes. It can be totally outrageous.

[sstotz]

I know!! Cake is rediculously expensive!! Thats why I am doing a cupcake cake...they cant charge cutting fees when theres nothing to cut! lol

[Mel&B]

My cake will be $7.00 per slice.

[jenjoe08]

The price listed on our catering materials was $15-30 a person.

[jenjoe08]

The price listed on our catering materials is $15-30 a person.

[lolkitteh]

The cake I want will cost around that much. I don't think that it's all that out of line, depending on what you have specified.

 

My FH, who has been married before and paid about $1300 for his 3 layer fondant cake for 100 people at his first wedding, warned about me about wedding cake prices. It's not just that they are gouging you, what you end up paying for is the labor involved in decorating it.

 

Two major things add to the cost of the cake. One is the decoration. I've found that once your design requires fondant (a very labor intensive style), it will quickly add at least 50% to the cost. The reason is that they must first frost the cake (probably in buttercream), and roll out by hand the very smooth, shiny fondant layer. This is not easy, especially with larger, round, or multiple layer cakes. Once they apply it to the cake, it is very difficult to fix mistakes in application and still maintain the smooth and shiny appearance of the cake.

 

You will immeidately save a lot of money if you choose a cake style that can be done in a simple buttercream frosting instead of rolled fondant.

 

The second thing is the shape and number of layers. A simple sheet cake is just that - very simple. Once you start adding tiers, the cake will start needing support infrastructure, or the layers will collapse into each other. The bigger the cake and more tiers, the more it will take to construct and transport the cake. You might be able to save costs by having fake foam cake layers (that are stronger and need less support) for some of the bottom layers if you have a multi-layer cake that you don't need to serve the whole thing (IE, cake is more for decoration and for the cutting ceremony than for eating)

 

One thing to ask your baker is if they included the top layer in the number of servings for the quote. Some bakers don't include this in the estimate because they assume you will save the top layer. If you plan to serve the top layer, then you may be able to get away with a smaller cake.

 

If you google "wedding cake prices", you'll probably find lots of articles that explain the above in more detail.

 

Hope this helps.