Hi, kind of a newbie question...

I know how I would price my cakes if they were wedding cakes, basically because I just got married and I shopped around alot.

But wedding cake pieces are smaller than a normal party goer would eat at something like a birthday party.

If you sell someone a cake for a function, other than a wedding, do you price on wedding sized pieces? For example, someone told me they want 45 servings, so I was going to do an 8" and 10" round. But that's based on charts I've seen for wedding servings....

You see where I'm going with this? Is an 8 and a 10 going to be considered 45 servings when the customer cuts it themselves, at a party, rather than being served by staff at a wedding?

Thanks!

I use the wilton wedding cake chart to determine my pricing, not necessarily to determine the number of servings.

I use 2x2x2 standard serving size as the sheet cake serving size to determine my pricing.

What this means, is that I have a price per serving, times the number of servings according to the wilton chart. A 10" round, for example, serves 38. I round to 35, times my rate of $3/serving = $105.

Customer comes in and says they need cake for 20 people. I tell them ".... an 8" round will serve 15-24, and a 10" round will serve 24-35, depending on how big you cut the pieces. The cost is blah for one and blah-blah for the other. Which one will you need?"

Customer couldn't give a rat's patooty about HOW I come up with the pricing. They just want to know how big the cake is and how big they should write the check.

Had a lady in yesterday looking for a sheet cake to serve 40. I told her I had a sheet cake that served UP TO 35 and one that served UP TO 54, depending on how big she cut it.

In my KFC example, the family bucket of 16 pieces is designed to serve 8 people, based on 2 pieces each. If a family of big eaters comes in and wants the 16 pc bucket to serve 4 people, are they going to get it for half price? Of course not! They are paying full price for the bucket.

Same with my cakes. They are paying the same price for the cake, no matter what they call it. They are welcome to cut a 10" cake in half and serve it with 2 forks for all I care. They are STILL paying for 35 servings .... the number of servings the cake was DESIGNED to serve.

Same work ... same ingredients .... same price.

I am not going to be put in the position of explaining to two ladies who happen to live next door to each other why the 10" round birtday cake cost less than the 10" round wedding cake.

Yep, I do it just like Debi. I use Wilton's "party" size servings for both party cakes and wedding cakes.

For me it's not so much that I charge more for wedding cakes as it is that I charge more for stacked or tiered cakes due to the fact that I'm making multiple cakes which use more cake boards and a support system so they involve more supplies than a sheet cake or single cake.