Wedding Cakes - Cut Your Budget So You Can Still Cut Your Cake

For those brides on a budget, there's very few areas of the wedding which will be subjected to cost cutting. The aim is however to slash the budget without your guests noticing. Wedding Cakes can be very expensive for what they are, don't get me wrong for some cakes many hours of have been spent decorating the cake intricately by an artist with years of experience.

Wedding Cakes from specialist bakeries can cost £200 plus, with the average being around £300. That's a lot of money on something that wont be around for long.

There are options though to help keep your wedding cake costs down. Believe it or not you can actually rent a cake, just like you can rent your wedding jewellery and the grooms outfits. Unfortunately you won't be able to make a show of cutting the cake. THey tend to be polystyrene with icing laid over the top. In some areas you might find it difficult to rent a cake but ask at the bakeries, they might be willing to lend you one they normally have on show in the shop.

One reason apart from the cost to rent a wedding cake is they they tend to be bigger and generally make more of an impact on your guests. You could have a cake which should have cost £1000 for £100.

If you really want to be able to cut the cake, ask for the top or middle layer to be made from real cake so you can carry on this tradition and get the photos. You'll still need to feed your guests wedding cake. But this can be in the form of larger trays of cakes. Once they've been cut in the kitchen and distributed by the catering staff you're guests will never realise it's not the same cake that's been on show during the reception. If you can't find a bakery that allows you to rent a cake, consider getting a small wedding cake and having the rest of the cake in baked in a large tray (similar to they do at canteens or buffets. You could have the offical wedding cake on show but dish out the tray cake and the wedding cake. Your guests are never going to be any wiser.

Because the cake is baked in a tray it requires less time to put together and doesn't need any elaborate decoration as your guests will only every see it cut up. As long as you order the same type of cake for both the wedding cake and the tray cake, you're guests aren't going to give it a second thought. Like most things in the wedding industry, the word "Wedding" means that suppliers can add a premium to it, this happen with wedding cakes too. If you have a feeling that this may be happening to you, try not to mention that it's for a wedding and if asked explain it's for a party of some other kind.

You could always buy 3 cakes of different sizes and layer them on top of each other. Decorate them with ribbon and a simple cake topper, scatter some silk petals in your wedding colours around the base and you have your own simple yet elegant wedding cake. Doing this will save you hundreds of pounds.

Also see if you can save money by picking up the wedding cake and taking it to your reception, this might be difficult if your wedding cake is very intricate and has a delicate structure, but if it's a stand 3 tier cake, it shouldn't be a problem. If you are transporting your own cake, then make sure each layer is boxed up well and the boxes are packed in such a ways that they can't slip around while your driving. You don't want to have to brake suddenly only to realised that you've completed wrecked them.