Serve the wedding cake or bag it to go?

crissyf918 · October 2013

We are having a plated cheesecake dessert as part of our sit down dinner. The caterer suggested having our wedding cake cut up and bagged for guests to take to go, because she felt they wouldn't want to eat cheesecake and then have a slice of wedding cake after. This made sense to my FI and I, but then a few of my guests mentioned that they were looking forward to eating the wedding cake at the reception and would like to have the wedding cake served as well. Now I'm second guessing having the wedding cake bagged.

I've been to a couple of places to buy cake bags and haven't had any luck finding them. Michael's was sold out and AC Moore only had 50 bags on hand. I need about 150, and my wedding is in 13 days. The caterer doesn't provide the bags. I wish I had known this, i could have ordered some cute custom bags. I am thinking the best case scenario would be to have the bags on hand and give the guests the choice whether to have some cake at the reception or take it home vs. just having the entire caked cut and bagged. Your thoughts?

Maggie0829 · October 2013

Typically in many weddings the wedding cake is cut and served about an hour and a half before the reception is over with. By that point it would have been a couple hours since dinner and dessert have been served so people may be in the mood for something sweet.

Also, there are some people (like myself) who hate cheesecake so they would be very much looking forward to a slice of cake to take the cheesecakes place.

I would serve the cake (meaning the caterer cuts it up and brings out slices on plates and sets them on a table so your guests can self-serve themselves) and then have boxes or bags so that your guests can grab an extra slice to go if they want.

As for bags/boxes I would try to find a website that sells them (you don't need anything special) and get them rushed delivered.

[Deleted User] · October 2013

We did both, we had them cut cake & put it on plates, but a ton of it. Basically they put out slices & then as people stopped coming up for them they stopped putting it on plates. In the mean time they put the rest of the cake into boxes for everyone to take home.

Try www.orientaltrading.com. I found several different styles of cake slice bags on there. They are $6.25 for 50 and if you order them today, no reason you shouldn't get them in time for your big day. Here is a link, if it oesn't work just go to their site & search wedding cake bag and all the options will come up. Hopefully something will work. http://www.orientaltrading.com/api/search?Ntt=wedding+cake+bag

or

Look online if you have any resturant supply stores in your area & see if you can find some take home containers. Or even look at wholesale clubs or stores like GFS if you hvae those in your area.

JoanE2012 · October 2013

I hate cheesecake, so I'd be disappointed not to have a slice of cake at the reception. Maggie's suggestion is a good one.

doeydo · October 2013

If you want to do it as a favour, you can bag or box the slices. However, I think lots of people would eat the cake as a late night snack sort of thing if you just served them on plates.

tammym1001 · October 2013

I would definitely want cake at the wedding. Part of it is because I really like cake and part of it is I try to eat really healthy unless it's a special occasion so I would eat the cake at your wedding, but if I had to take it home I would throw it away.

katieg520 · October 2013

Give them cake!!!!! People go to weddings FOR the cake!!!

SP29 · October 2013

Serve the cake! I love cake (and cheesecake! I'd eat both no problem

).

But it is not a bad idea to have bags (or better yet, boxes) for those guests who may not want another piece of cake, which does happen. Some people are too "full" or something weird like that :P- who doesn't want more cake??

crissyf918 · October 2013

Thanks for the input, all.

I've ordered from Oriental Trading in the past and it took a long time for them to ship, so I don't want to risk ordering from them with only having 13 days left.

I am surprising my fiance with an Optimus Prime groom's cake, so we are going to have a lot of cake!. I think it would be nice to give my guests the option to eat the cake at the wedding if they want it. I am going to ask the caterer to serve the cake later during the reception. The wedding cake is chocolate chip pound cake with butter cream icing, the groom's cake is plain pound cake with vanilla icing. These will be nice options for the folks who hate cheesecake! The bottom line is no matter what you serve, you can't please everyone, so it is nice to give an option. This way, people can do what they want, and aren't forced into anything.

Maggie0829 · October 2013

crissyf918 said:

Thanks for the input, all.

I've ordered from Oriental Trading in the past and it took a long time for them to ship, so I don't want to risk ordering from them with only having 13 days left.

I am surprising my fiance with an Optimus Prime groom's cake, so we are going to have a lot of cake!. I think it would be nice to give my guests the option to eat the cake at the wedding if they want it. I am going to ask the caterer to serve the cake later during the reception. The wedding cake is chocolate chip pound cake with butter cream icing, the groom's cake is plain pound cake with vanilla icing. These will be nice options for the folks who hate cheesecake! The bottom line is no matter what you serve, you can't please everyone, so it is nice to give an option. This way, people can do what they want, and aren't forced into anything.

If you need to unload some of that wedding cake after all is said and done you can just ship some to me because that sounds extremely tasty!

Jen4948 · October 2013

I love both cake and cheesecake, but you may have guests who don't care for cheesecake, like the posters here who have so indicated.

So I'd cut and serve slices of the regular cake and have boxes, perhaps small fold-up ones, available for your guests to take any home.

grumbledore · October 2013

Maggie0829 said:

Typically in many weddings the wedding cake is cut and served about an hour and a half before the reception is over with. By that point it would have been a couple hours since dinner and dessert have been served so people may be in the mood for something sweet.

Also, there are some people (like myself) who hate cheesecake so they would be very much looking forward to a slice of cake to take the cheesecakes place.

I would serve the cake (meaning the caterer cuts it up and brings out slices on plates and sets them on a table so your guests can self-serve themselves) and then have boxes or bags so that your guests can grab an extra slice to go if they want.

As for bags/boxes I would try to find a website that sells them (you don't need anything special) and get them rushed delivered.

I agree 100%. Make it easy for people to take it home if they want, but serve it at the wedding.

allelsefaild · October 2013

It's so nice to know I'm not alone in my hatred of cheesecake. Add another vote to the serve the cake team.

RebeccaB88 · October 2013

I like cheesecake, but I'd much rather have cake.

Can you not offer your guests at least the choice? Either cake or cheesecake as they want?

BlueBirdMB · October 2013

Our venue boxed the extra slices and the extra late night snacks to go at the end. They were all eaten at after parties at the hotel apparently. You sound like you have a lot of cake, so serve it and have boxes available.

melbenso · November 2013

Serve the cake but ask your venue or cake baker about to go boxes so guests can take their slices (or extra slices, if there are any) home. Our baker provides boxes for guests and one for our saved tier as a part of the price of the cake!

csuave · November 2013

We had a lot of food and three different desserts so we had the desserts come out later instead of immediately after dinner. Because people start moving around after dinner we had the cake, vanilla cheesecake and chocolate cheesecake sliced and put out on table for self serve with boxes available on the table. There was also a self serve coffee bar. The DJ made an announcement when it was dessert time.

We got white foam clamshell boxes from GFS since I thought those would offer better protection compared to a bag.

To make people aware that dessert would not immediately follow dinner we printed menus on regular paper and put one on each plate. In the dessert section it said "Dessert will be available at 9pm and feature wedding cake, vanilla cheesecake and chocolate cheesecake. No room for dessert? Use a take home box and enjoy it later."

AddieCake · November 2013

SERVE ALL THE CAKE!!!!!

Serve the wedding cake or bag it to go?

Re: Serve the wedding cake or bag it to go?

Choose Another Board

Search Boards