Wedding cakes! We’ve all seen on Instagram and Pinterest how amazing these creations can be, it’s not hard to imagine how much time, effort and skills goes into making them so you can understand why they come with the price tag that they do. But what if you don’t have that kind of budget or you’d prefer to use that money for something else? Well here are my top 10 tips to save money on your wedding cake…

1. BAKER BUDDIES

If you’ve got a friend or family member who’s pretty skilled in the baking department they may be worth buttering up (pardon the pun). If you’re nice enough you might be able to convince them to bake your wedding cake as a “wedding present”. Be careful how you ask and maybe gently suggest at first that you’d pay for the ingredients but if you can convince them you’ll have definitely saved yourself a bit of cash.

2. ORDER LESS

It seems to just be automatic that the wedding cake you display should be enough to feed the majority of your guests but who says that’s what you have to do? Why not have a smaller “display cake” that can be eated and then have “cutting cakes” that can be cut up and served all together. No one will know it’s a different cake but cutting cakes are a lot chelaborately decor Wedding Cutting Cake aper and can be purchased from places like Waitrose and M&S at a fraction of the price.

3. SHOP BOUGHT CAKES

Talking of Marks & Spencers and Waitrose, they have their own range of wedding cakes from very simple white iced cakes of different sizes that you can purchases pillars to stack them with or you can chose one of their fully decorated cakes. Depending on what you opt for you can certainly find something to work with your budget.

4. COLLECTION OR STAY LOCAL

Some bakeries will charge for delivery to the venue. The further they have to travel the more they are likely to charge so you are best off finding a bakery closer to the venue or consider collecting and setting it up yourself.

5. DECORATE THE CAKE YOURSELF

The more decorative the cake the more expensive it will be so you could always consider having a more simple cake and decorating yourself with flowers or fresh fruit. If you’re not particularly creative you could always book for me to come and set up the cake and decorate for you. I love giving a cake a bit of a florrish.

6. LITTLE FANCY ADDITIONS

You may have seen wedding cake displays with with one small top tier on the top of a cake stand and then the bottom tiers all full of cupcakes. Cupcakes can be quite expensive if you have lots of guests so why not substitute them with mini cakes like little bakewell tarts or French fancies. Mr Kipling have just launches Bridal French Fancies which I simply love. How cute would those look stacked on a tiered cake stand and they will certainly not break the bank!

7. DOUBLE UP FOR DESSERT

A lot of people worry that no one will eat the cake and you’re right sometimes it can get missed if it’s on a table at the back of the room and everyone is too busy dancing. You’re already serving dessert so you could have a cake that could double up as dessert. You’ll just need to plan to do the offical cake cutting before you sit down for the meal to give the catering team time to plate it up for your guests. If you decide to go down this route you could always decide to have something a bit different like maybe a pavlova cake, a cheesecake cake (not cheese cheese but actual cheesecake) or brownies that can be served with a scoop of ice cream and some juicy strawberries (everyone loves a chocolate dessert right?)

8. DESSERT TABLE

Still on the theme of dessert, you could always have a dessert table with a selection of cakes, desserts, cookies etc which guests can serve themselves from. You can always have a token “wedding cake” as part of the display with your wedding topper if you want one that you can cut if you want to stick with tradition and have a cake cutting. You will need to check with your venue whether they are happy for you to bring these in yourself. Most will just ask that you sign a disclaimer form.

9. MAKE IT PART OF THE EVENING

Alternatively, instead of dessert make it a real part of your evening food. Have it served at the same time to bulk out the amount of food served and allow you to order less portions. Whether you opt for something traditional and sweet or you could be alternative and have a savoury cake such as a cheese cake with crackers (this time I mean cheese cheese) or you could do a pork pie cake (something very popular with the men especially my Brother in Law!).

10. DON’T BE AFRAID TO THINK OUTSIDE THE CAKE BOX

There is nothing wrong with having something a little bit different; a donut stack, a profiterole tower, macaroons etc. I went to an event recently that had a “pimp my donut” station” and I was in heaven. It was really great fun that it was interactive and a feature of the event. There will always be the more expensive way of doing these options so consider what you can do as a DIY job. Can things be shop bought and put on a nice display to save a bit of money. If you’re worried about how it might look you can always jazz it up with some fresh flowers.

Right I shall stop talking about cake as that’s made me super hungry, I really fancy a bit of cake now! I hope you found my top 10 tips to save money on your wedding cake useful.

Happy Wedmin-ing!

Amy x