So my best guy friend is getting married, and I am even his groomswoman. While I love decorating cakes, its not my job, I do it for friends and family. I have yet to be paid for a cake, besides some friends or family paying for supplies, but most of the time its more or less part of my gift to them. I have been encouraged to do more but Im more worried about school right now. Sorry for rambling. My point being is what are everyones thoughts on making the cake my gift to them. With the exception of flowers, hand made or real its to expensive and/or time consuming. So if they decide they want flowers that wont be part of my gift. Im a broke colllege student and cant afford much, but my time in making and decorating the cake is relatively free. But I dont want to appear cheap or tasteless. That and if I do decide to charge them I have no idea what to charge. Please help?

Hi there

Why not tell them that if they are willing to cover the cost of ingredients and flowers, that you will bake, decorate and set up the cake as your gift to them, this way it will cost them way way less on their cake, but get something they really want, and your preciouse time and talent is your gift to them.

I did this with a friend of mine too , she wanted to pay me for the cake, but i ended up doing the baking , decorating etc as my gift for them, so instead of them paying say for eg.(please note this is not what it cost - lol just an example) R1000-00 for it, they only paid the R500-00 or so for the ingredients - so m,y gift to them was for eg R500-00 worth (my time and talent etc) and they were thrilled with it too!!

I think it is a lovely gift, giving your time and talent, they would have to pay someone else the extra money for their time and talent!
Just my opinion.

hope it helps

I don't sell cakes either, but I think that the idea is great. Just talk to the couple and see what they say. If they like your work/style then they would probably be thrilled that you are willing to take on the job and save them money by gifting it to them!

I did my cousin's cake as a gift, shipped it (and myself AND half my kitchen) to CA and decorated it there, and had a blast doing it (spent a fortune on it too--shipping it there cost more than my AIRLINE ticket! plus the rental car and the room for the weekend--all cost me about $1K to do this for her, not counting my time...but I love my cousin ). She had the flowers already on site from the florist, and I don't remember that even coming up, but you could say you'll do the cake part, and if they want flowers, they can order them from their florist. It's fun to do, if you want to do it. It's a great gift to give.

I have made cakes and given them as gifts to family and friends, birthday and wedding. Having sold wedding cakes and knowing how much they can go for depending on where you live, Making the cake and giving it as a gift is wonderful, and will save them alot of money that maybe they can use towards there dream honeymoon.

Ive never had anyone buy the ingredients for me when Ive given it as a gift,,,but I dont see where that would be a problem at all cuz the ingredients are still alot less than buying the wedding cake from another baker.

I think it is a wonderful idea and a very meaningful gift from the heart.

Lams

I think it is a wonderful gift too, but before you both agree to it, just make sure the venue will allow you to bring it in without a permit if you are not licensed...

ditto marmalade1687, if you're not licensed, making the cake may not even be an option for you.

Depending on how many the cake needs to serve, if you've never done a wedding cake before just know that it still could be an expense that you can't afford right now. Do you have the correct size pans, support system, etc.

Before I was licensed I was unable to buy from baker's wholesalers so my average wedding cake cost me about $100 for ingredients, supports, boards, boxes, etc.

So if the venue allows unlicensed bakers to supply the cake and your friend asks you to make it, sure I'd say it's a great gift. (If fresh flowers are used, I never get involved in that, they get them from their florist and I put them on at the venue)

Good luck

As someone on a very tight budget, I am always careful about offering to do a cake free until I get some details, the most important being the number of servings.

I recently did an 80th birthday cake for 150 and I did it for ingredients and supplies only. My time was my gift. My cousin who ordered the cake was most understanding and more than willing to pay for ingredients.

Hope this helps.

I always give the cake to my nieces/nephews as their wedding gift ".....and I guarantee that nobody else is giving you a present that costs this much!" I'm very fortunate because my family members are great and are very appreciative for this gift.

I've also done cakes for other family members with the deal of "you buy the stuff, I'll make the cake".

Like you, I don't do cakes professionally. I make cakes for family only, or very close friends. I made my sister's and my brother's wedding cakes for them. Now, they have an idea of how much work goes into cake decorating, so I think they valued my present for what it was worth. Every time I've made a cake for an occasion, I've enjoyed the comments by guests, and enjoyed the marveled looks on their faces (as they don't know I do this for fun). I'm sure your cake will turn out beautiful and hope that the bride and groom (and YOU!) are happy with the results.

This year I am making my brother's wedding cake and one for my mom's best friend (she's like my aunt, been around all my life). They are both gifts. My stipulation with this is that the design is of my choosing.

I think if you want to do it and can afford to go ahead. And there is nothing wrong with asking them to cover ingredients if you can't spare them money. They know you are in school and hopefully will appreciate the sacrifice of your time. Plus, they won't get a cake anywhere else at cost.

Go with your gut on this one!

My roommate did this for me and I loved it! I did pay for ingredients, since she was also a poor college student, but I didn't mind because we saved SO much money over a professional baker. Go for it!

I'm also doing my brother's wedding cake... I'm talking with his fiancee to get an idea of colors and what she wants, but I just told them I'll try to get in as much as I can of their ideas, but the final design will depend on how much I can get done when the time comes! I have three kids under five, and they come FIRST, but I can still guarantee a GREAT tasting cake. It will look great as well, but the amount of detailing may vary...

I'm not asking them to cover the ingredients, but when they asked, I DID mention that if I were to SELL this cake to anyone else, it would be over $1000... But I'm more than happy to do an awesome cake for my bro and his awesome soon-to-be wife! That's what family does... (And it helps that they're really appreciative, I don't know that I'd do it for a whiner... )

I think it's a lovely and generous gift. It's much more than I would ever spend on a couple for a gift.

I have done several cakes for my nieces and nephew's as a wedding gift. It's a give from my heart.

I made my BFF's wedding cake, and I didn't charge her anything for it. The cake (and my presence! hehe) was my gift to her. Now, I am making her momma's wedding cake in a few months, and while the cake is going to be my gift to her, I am charging her for the ingrediants. I think if you can afford it, it's a wonderful gift, but there is also not anything wrong with asking her to cover the cost of the ingrediants, either. You can also look at it this way, if there's something you've been wanting to buy for awhile to use for cake decorating, you now how the perfect excuse! Gotta buy it for the wedding cake! lol

Just a quick hi-jack.......Nice to see you spencersmom, how are things going ?

I was just wondering about you, I hadn't seen you in any threads for a while, I hope all is well


Deb (from the "original" Officially Embarrassed thread )

I think it's a great idea to give the wedding cake as a gift.

I've done a couple cakes for wedding gifts for my sister and an uncle... it's the perfect gift with no fear of there being a duplicate and it's such a feeling of joy to contribute to someone's special day... I think it's a fabulous idea!

I am doing 3 wedding cakes in 1 month's time. They are all gifts to friends! And I am so happy that I will have the opportunity to do this for them.

I have one on the 28 of March, then April 18th and 25th! I think it means a lot to them giving something that they know comes from the heart.

But if you don't feel comfortable doing it all for free, then let them know. Offer them to pay for ingredients and offer your decorations for free. Or make an arrangement. Don't get pushed into something you don't wan to do. I am sure they will understand!

I agree with previous posts. I am making my niece's wedding cake in May and delivering it 2 1/2 hours away. They are paying for all the ingredients and even purchased the hardware needed since I am just starting out with a home business and have been building up my hardware as I could afford it or when needed for a particular order.

In this case the cake will be 8 tiers and feed about 250 people. It is a very simple cake, a Martha Stewart cake, but it will take quite a few hours to make and bake the cakes, cover with fondant, and that's all before I get to the fun part - the decorating!

My gift to them is the time I spend making this cake. We all know how much time goes into the mixing, baking, covering, stacking and decorating and delivering. I figure I probably saved them $800 to $1000 on this cake. I certainly can't afford to give anyone a gift that expensive, but my time - that I can do and will do so with lots of love and best wishes for the new couple.

This is just something to think about but it happened to me. I agreed to do a close friend's daughters wedding cake for free. Of course since it was free the sky seemed to be the limit...not only was it fondant but it grew to 200 servings. Ingredients for that get expensive!

Here's the kicker though. They called off the wedding and didn't mention anything to me about it. A month before the date I was getting ready to order the fondant and supplies and just by chance heard through the grapevine that the wedding was called off! Thank goodness I hadn't order the ingredients!

Thank you everyone for you thoughts and ideas. My biggest concern was I didn't want them to think it was a bad gift. The idea of charging them for just the ingredients is great since I just found out the cake is for 250 people. But Ill see what they settle on, and hopefully I will have posted a beautiful cake at the end of August.

Also wanted to thank the people who mentioned the license, I hadn't even thought about if the venue would let me. Thanks!!!!