The Dessert Room, a Hamilton wedding cake shop and bakery, opened its doors this past spring. I sat down with owner Marcia to get the low down on how to order a wedding cakeMarcia says that the most common question she receives is, "how much does a three-tiered wedding cake cost?". It seems like an innocent question, but like many wedding cake designers, The Dessert Room's wedding cakes are custom for each client so a consultation is required in order to properly estimate.What exactly is the kind of information you need to price out your wedding cake? Well, the simple answer is that the more information you can provide, the better.
The Number of Servings
Knowing your guest count and whether it is being served as the dessert course or late-night option is key. Serving as the dessert course means more servings are required as you'll be serving 100% of your guests. For late-night, we recommend that you account for 50 - 60% of your guest count having a slice.
Inspiration Images
Since designing a wedding cake contributes to the aesthetic of the event, it's is best to come with inspiration images. These images can be of other cakes or design-related elements such as stationery, florals and colour palette. One sensitive area is coming in with a specific image and wanting to replicate the design exactly. It's always so much more special when something is customized to you, so be open-minded in discussing revisions to a cake design to make it unique to you. The best part, in the end, is that it usually turns out better the original!
Budget and Details
Wedding cakes from The Dessert Room are 100% made from scratch so they are hand-made just for you. Regardless of where you go, before you make your meeting, figure out exactly how much of your budget you can allot to the cake. I typically tell my clients to set 1.5% of their wedding budget aside for the cake. Each wedding cake can take anywhere from 8 to 20 hours to complete depending on its complexity in design. If you are looking for hand made elements such as sugar flowers, scrolling and painting, expect the costs to increase.Since the cake will be 100% customized to you, having full trust in your cake designer is key. Sketches can be drawn to give a general idea as to how the cake will look, but the final product should surprise you a little!If you're looking for how to order a wedding cake and saving a few dollars, do a smaller wedding cake for display, but have slab cakes prepared for the kitchen to quickly slice and plate for dinner or late night. You can also do a smaller cake for late night only with and display with a few beautifully decorated cupcakes. Lastly, add a few strategically placed fresh flowers on the cake rather than the hand made elements!
The Process
Now that you have an idea of the information you need to collect, let's walk through the steps for how to order a wedding cake!
Start with a consultation. You know how a dress shop would never want to put you into a dress you can't afford in case you fell in love? Well, your cake designer doesn't want to that either! Doing a consultation first is key because it gives you a chance to get to know each other and determine if their shop and pricing is right for you. Going into the tasting before discussing pricing tasting means you may fall in love with a flavour without being able to afford the cake.
Estimation. Once you've chatted about your wedding and the specifics, the cake designer will prepare an estimate that is custom to you.
Tasting. If the estimation looks good, you're then good to go for a tasting! It's recommended that you stick to trying 3 flavours rather than the whole lot.
Order! Depending on the size of the cake it's normal to be able to select more than one flavour. If you are serving the wedding cake as the dessert course, Marcia recommends going with at least one flavour that is more of a crowd-pleaser so that the cake doesn't go to waste. Carrot or red velvet flavours don't tend to be an overwhelming favourite so you may want to do a smaller tier of that and the larger tier of something with a vanilla or chocolate base. Give yourself between 9 - 12 months lead time for high season weddings (May - October) and 6 - 9 months for offseason.
ABOUT THE DESSERT ROOM
During university, owner Marcia Fattouh, worked at a local bakery and fell in love with it. Once she completed university, she moved to Toronto, working at a French pastry shop while attending George Brown for the Baking and Pastry Arts program. She then spent time in France, completing two certificate programs at L'Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Patisserie. She returned to Toronto and completed the program at the Bonnie Gordon College and took the leap in opening up her own shop this past spring!
PHOTOGRAPHY
All photography was beautifully provided by the talented and generous Kayla Yestal, a fine art wedding photographer based in Guelph, but travels the world with her passion!