It might seem like a sim­ple thing, find cake you like, con­tact designer, order cake — but there’s a lot involved in order­ing wed­ding cakes. Go pre­pared and there won’t be any surprises!

With thanks to Beth, owner and designer at Cakes By Beth

How to order a designer wed­ding cake

What infor­ma­tion should you pro­vide to the wed­ding cake designer?

The date and loca­tion of your wed­ding, plus num­ber of expected guests. Your wed­ding cake designer can then reply back know­ing that they’re avail­able on that date, can deliver a cake to that loca­tion (and cal­cu­late any deliv­ery costs involved), and give a rec­om­mended size of cake, which will give an indi­ca­tion of the price.

Dif­fer­ent cou­ples plan to serve their wed­ding cake at dif­fer­ent stages of their wed­ding so it is best to esti­mate how many peo­ple you want to serve the cake to i.e. you may only be hav­ing 50 peo­ple at your cer­e­mony but if your evening recep­tion is for 250 peo­ple, this is where the cake is nor­mally cut and so we would be look­ing at quite a large wed­ding cake!

If you have any ini­tial ideas about how you want your wed­ding cake to look, if you have seen a cake on the cake designer’s web­site that you like, or if you have decided upon a theme or colour scheme for their wed­ding, it is also quite handy to put these in the ini­tial enquiry as the cake designer can then quote based on these and maybe come up with some other inter­est­ing ideas as well.

“My mind starts rac­ing when I receive an enquiry with lots of theme and colour ideas in it so I really appre­ci­ate being able to show my pas­sion and enthu­si­asm in my ini­tial response. If the bride and groom are con­tact­ing sev­eral sup­pli­ers about a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct or ser­vice, the ideas in the response they receive can also help to decide who is on the same wave­length as them and so who to take the enquiry fur­ther with.”

It is also really help­ful to find out where you heard about the cake designer you’re con­tact­ing, as it helps to estab­lish what is work­ing, what isn’t and how cou­ples go about sourc­ing suppliers.

What hap­pens next, after the ini­tial enquiry?

“I have a rule of respond­ing to enquiries within 24 hours of being con­tacted, so that the bride and groom know very quickly whether they would be inter­ested in find­ing out more. As part of my response, I offer the cou­ple of com­pli­men­tary design con­sul­ta­tion as for me, this is a really impor­tant part of design­ing a cake.

Meet­ing the cou­ple, find­ing out what they like and don’t like, get­ting them to try some sam­ples so I know they are happy with the taste of my cakes, and gen­er­ally get­ting a feel for what they are look­ing for. I also enquire about any flavour ideas they might have so that I can tai­lor the sam­ples to the flavours of cake that they are con­sid­er­ing having.

If the cou­ple haven’t described any­thing about their day, I will ask about themes, colours, num­ber of guests etc as I gen­er­ally put together an inspi­ra­tion board for the cou­ple, which I then take to the con­sul­ta­tion. This con­tains some lovely images of what is in my head about how they have described their wed­ding, and ideas for cake shapes, sizes and details that I feel they may be inter­ested in.”

What should a bride and groom ask?

“I’m sure that most brides and grooms have loads of ques­tions that they want to ask and I’m always happy to dis­cuss any­thing with them, includ­ing rec­om­mend­ing other sup­pli­ers for dif­fer­ent parts of their wed­ding. If they have a pretty fixed bud­get for their wed­ding cake, it is a good idea to ask whether deliv­ery and set up are included in the quoted price (for me, this is included for deliv­ery to venues within Greater Man­ches­ter, Cheshire and Lan­cashire). Also, as I work with food, insur­ance and the stamp of approval from Envi­ron­men­tal Health are key aspects of run­ning my busi­ness so if it isn’t clear on the cake designer’s web­site, it is worth ask­ing about these.

I try to pro­vide as much reas­sur­ance as pos­si­ble to cou­ples that I work with and hav­ing heard a lot of hor­ror sto­ries about peo­ple being let down just before their wed­ding, I want brides and grooms to know that if they work with me, they won’t be let down. How­ever, when once you have decided that you would like to book a cer­tain sup­plier, it could also be worth ask­ing about what plans are in place should unfore­seen cir­cum­stances mean that the sup­plier you’ve booked is unable to ful­fil your order. For small busi­nesses, where the cou­ple are pay­ing for the cre­ative skills of the owner, this is a slightly mor­bid but very impor­tant fac­tor to con­sider. I rely totally on my rep­u­ta­tion and qual­ity of ser­vice, and so I want cou­ples to know that no mat­ter what, they will receive the cake of their dreams on their wed­ding day and that this is some­thing that they don’t need to worry about.

One of my favourite ques­tions from brides and grooms is “Do you have any ideas?” I always have lots and love show­ing them dif­fer­ent options for how I envis­age their cake look­ing. Even if you have set ideas about the exact cake that you want, it’s always worth hear­ing what your cake designer has come up with as you never know, you might just see some­thing you like even more…

 

Where and when should cou­ples get in touch with a cake designer?

For me, it is best if the bride and groom get in touch as soon as pos­si­ble. It may seem like a long way away but I book up fast for up to a year ahead, so if you def­i­nitely want a par­tic­u­lar wed­ding sup­plier, make your ini­tial enquiry as soon as you can. That way, even if you don’t know any details, they can pen­cil you in for that date and if they then start get­ting enquiries that would clash with your wed­ding, they can con­tact you to ask if you are def­i­nitely interested.

For a wed­ding cake, the min­i­mum com­fort­able amount of notice is about three months. This is how long it takes to make a good fruit cake if this flavour is required, and it allows time for the design con­sul­ta­tion, amend­ments to the design, sourc­ing of dif­fer­ent ele­ments and gives every­one some time to think.

I don’t mind of the ini­tial con­tact is made via phone or email to chat through their ideas, although I do ask that every­thing is put in writ­ing so that I can reply in writ­ing with some quotes and ideas. This ensures that no detail gets missed and the bride and groom can then sit down with my email and chat through the dif­fer­ent points in their own time.

Dos and Don’ts for order­ing a designer wed­ding cake

Gen­er­ally, choos­ing your wed­ding cake is a relaxed, fun and tasty part of the wed­ding plan­ning process so I wouldn’t say that there are any rules around it. I have a few tips that might make things eas­ier though:

- DO give as much gen­eral infor­ma­tion as you can in your ini­tial enquiry as the response you receive will be more use­ful to you in your decision-making process

- DO state if you have a max­i­mum bud­get that you just can’t exceed, or a ball­park fig­ure of what you want to spend. Your cake designer can then work with you to cre­ate a cake that you love and that you can afford

- DO con­tact wed­ding sup­pli­ers, even if you don’t yet have many details in place about your wed­ding. We can always pen­cil you in and book a meet­ing nearer the time, and it means that you won’t be disappointed.

- DO ask for sam­ples and a design con­sul­ta­tion. I think this is a hugely impor­tant part of design­ing your wed­ding cake and if you bring swatches, pic­tures and ideas, the process helps to ensure that all of the lit­tle details are perfect.

- DO email back please. If you receive a quote that you are not happy with, email back to ask if there is a design that will fit in with the bud­get you have, or if cer­tain ele­ments can be taken out to reduce the cost. We like to know where we stand, even if it’s thanks but no thanks, and we know not to bother you again.

- DON’T be unre­al­is­tic about what you can get for your money. With any­thing, if you want a bespoke, hand-made prod­uct, you are pay­ing for the creator’s time, as well as the mate­ri­als and ingre­di­ents. Your cake designer is unlikely to be able to com­pete with super­mar­ket wed­ding cake prices, but when you also con­sider that these cakes need to be col­lected and assem­bled your­self, would you really want them to compete?

- DON’T panic! You have cho­sen wed­ding sup­pli­ers that you like and respect, you trust them to do a great job and you are thrilled with the designs and plans that they have put in place for you. Rest easy that they will have every­thing sorted for you. I like to con­tact cou­ples who have booked with me, espe­cially those who have booked far in advance, shortly before their wed­ding, just to reas­sure them. Gen­er­ally though, sup­pli­ers are just get­ting on with things and leav­ing you to enjoy the run up to your wed­ding. They haven’t for­got­ten about you and if there were any prob­lems or ques­tions, you would def­i­nitely hear some­thing. No news is gen­er­ally good news!

Should you ask for a dis­count on a designer wed­ding cake?

“I wouldn’t give a per­cent­age dis­count on a cake, just because some­one asked. If I was pre­pared to do that, why would I quote the higher price in the first place? How­ever, I am pre­pared to work with cou­ples when they have a bud­get that they need to keep within, which could include sug­gest­ing less costly alter­na­tives or tweaks to the design to reduce the price but still give them the cake that they want.

Also, if a cou­ple are order­ing lots of other items from me, such as favours or a dessert table, I wouldn’t charge them for every sin­gle item as this seems unfair, I would put together a quote that reflects their com­mit­ment to me in mak­ing me such a big part of their wedding.

I have been asked before to price match with another cake sup­plier who had quoted less for a sim­i­lar cake design. Their lower price was based on the fact that it was a mid-week wed­ding, rather than a Sat­ur­day. For me, I don’t believe in dif­fer­ent prices depend­ing on when your wed­ding is, such as Sat­ur­days v mid-week or Sum­mer v Win­ter, as it would take me the same time, effort and ingre­di­ents to make the cake, when­ever it was required for. As I said before, if you are happy to do it for less, why quote for more in the first place?

There­fore, I don’t hag­gle as I feel that my cakes are good value for money any­way and if you like me and what I do, the price quoted is a fair price. In this case, the cou­ple really got on with me and liked my open and hon­est approach, did book me for their wed­ding, even though I wasn’t the cheap­est. This shows that although keep­ing within bud­get and not allow­ing costs to spi­ral is really impor­tant, when book­ing your wed­ding sup­pli­ers, you are pay­ing for the per­son as much as the prod­uct or ser­vice. If you like and trust them, you will have greater peace of mind that they under­stand you and will deliver exactly what you want.

Huge thanks to Beth — Cakes by Beth — for her advice!

Back to the How-To Wed­ding Guide