Average cost for a wedding cake?

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It costs to make a good quality product and it takes hours and sometimes days to make these cakes. Even a "simple design" costs for ingredients if you want a good tasting cake. Cupcakes depending on ingredients can cost as much and if you want them decorated, it is also time consuming. Each cupcake is a mini cake. With the tiered cakes it is a lot of cake and icing which adds up fast. It is hours of time and if you are wanting complex designs that is time for the baker. It is one day in your life but it is an important one and bakers put much time into creating your vision for a perfect day. I can not even do a cake with dummy layers for less than $100.00 and when you add cupcakes or want to add other things to your designs, it adds up.

The charge of bakery chosen will depend on how you want to go based on tiers or slab.

Tiers are how many the couple chooses and choice of icing. Fondant is more expensive than frosting. Even say you want to go fake tiers and top being real, the bakery will still charge for the icing on those fake tiers.

Slabs are for serving other than the actual top tier and fake cakes decided upon. The cost varies based on portions on slabs. Guest count can be accounted for unless you know there are some that don't go for it and can save by going down in size (1/2 to 1/4 slab).

Sweet tables waste more food than ever, personally speaking from attending many weddings and your cake will be left over and gone to waste in a couple of days.

Consider from the venue if sweet table is being served, consider less tiers if going that direction or a small slab due to the variety offered. Sit down service, then go full guest count.

I think it also depends on the city you're in.

We nixed the wedding cake idea partly due to costs. Instead we're having an ice cream truck come by after brunch, and give away mini sandwiches.

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That's nice!!! I know some venues charge up to $3.00 per plate... which when you're serving a couple hundred can get pricey really quick...

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Thanks, it was a tough decision, but happy with our choice of cupcakes!

View quoted message Wow love the colors!

I found that so many places were so different! We ended up doing cupcakes because we will be at our hotel for 5 days, so I didn’t want to worry about storing a cake. We are doing 8 dozen cupcakes.
This is what exactly we are getting
42 regular cupcakes
42 regular cupcakes with fondant flowers
12 gluten free cupcakes half with fondant half without
it is costing $400 for the cupcakes plus $180 delivery and set up.
Her start price for a 3 tiered cake was $450, so cupcakes didn’t save us a bunch

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Both ideas look awesome!

We really wanted to re-create this effect for our cake, which is why I justified paying more for cupcakes (instead of the grey, we are getting purple)

This is what we would have done if we went with tiered cake:

Ombre ruffles (small cake will be our 1 tier cutting cake)

Ombre rosettes

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Wow! That's crazy. The base price would be $330 then we would probably add more design and details to just a cake (would probably do an ombre buttercream effect, either ruffles or rosettes). With the cupcakes we are getting a small fondant peacock feather "eye" detail and 3 different colours.

Tier CakeCutting cake and cupcakes

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Haha yes I didn't either! Around her the slice start at $7 and go up to $15 or so. The catering company offered to cut the cake for us and put on the plates and clean up for a small extra fee, which was really nice!

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The average price around here is $36-45 per dozen of cupcakes. Its good to know the difference of tier cake vs one tier and cupcakes!

That sounds about right! We aren't serving cake but for a small 2 tier cake we are still paying $250! (would feed 30 people but again we are just using it for cutting photos and to keep for ourselves!)

All bakers I reached out to charged by the slice... which was usually between $6-$8 per slice (so per person)

And don't forget a lot of venues will charge you a plating fee for cake, for them to serve it on their plates with cutlery and clean up!

Cake is expensive I have realized ahaha!

We're doing a one tier cake for us to have a cake cutting photo, and then 15 dozen (180) cupcakes to feed 150 people.

Our baker charges $27 per dozen for cupcakes, which comes to $405. She charges differently for fondant vs buttercream cakes - we're getting a 6 inch buttercream which is $45, bringing our total to $450.

She charges first based on frosting, then on size of cake. Extra details/designing have an additional cost to them as well. If we wanted flowers on it, we'd have to supply them to her.

If we went the tiered cake route, it's would cost us around $330 for a simple buttercream cake, plus and decor/designs we wanted. I feel like anything over $700 is too much for 100 guests.