XP Has anyone decorated their own cake?

Re: XP Has anyone decorated their own cake?

• GoodLuckBear14 member

  

  April 2012

  Do you have any experience with cake decorating?  A woman that I once worked with decided to save money and make her own wedding cake.  She soon found out why bakers are paid what they are paid for wedding cakes.
  
  Look at your local grocery store and see what they charge for  wedding cakes.  It is usually a lot less.  Another thing you could do is have a small cake for cutting and then sheet cakes for serving.

  Proud to be an old married hag!!

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• jessicabessica member

  

  April 2012

  In addition to the considerations PP mentioned, some venues do not let you serve food made by an unlicensed caterer/baker, which I'm assuming your friend is not.  

  
  

  If your venue is ok with it and you decide to go through with her making your cake, I would do a smaller test cake so you can get an idea of how the flowers work and how many you need per square inch of cake to get the look you want.

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• JaxInBlue member

  

  April 2012

  I'd recommend against it, for reasons PPs have mentioned.  A family member of mine who has a business doing wedding cakes (and did our cupcake display) decided to do his own cake.  He was so nervous doing the work and set up the cake actually started to fall during the reception.  If you want to do this, you should do two or three trials.
  
  I agree with GoodLuck - try your grocery store or think about supplementing a tiny cake with sheet cakes.  Also think about cupcakes.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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• egm900 member

  

  April 2012

  Are you going to have time to decorate a cake that close to your wedding?  I would sit down and have my timeline in hand for the entire week before the wedding before I decided if I could decorate the cake.  I had a friend who thought she'd make her own favors by making chocolate suckers (melt candy melts, pour into mold, and insert stick), and even though she did a trial run and was sure she could handle it, she didn't have the time for it a couple weeks before the wedding, much less within days or hours of it.
  
  I think cupcakes or sheet cake is going to be your best bet.  If you're having other desserts, I would estimate low for the cake unless your providing a means for guests to take it home.

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• jbenbe28

  

  April 2012

  Our venue does allow outside deserts, even home made.  This will literally require us to poke flowers into a cake so I don't believe it will be an issue.  Thanks for your comments/opinions, some of the girls on the diy board have done this and have given some great tips and an estimate of how many flowers I'll be needing.  I'll definitely be doing a trial run.

  

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• cwaggoner07 member

  

  April 2012

  Good luck!
  And if it doesn't work out, I always think the sheet cake is a great alternative.

  It was a fairytale.

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