Pricing Problem...please Give Your Advice
Decorating By leslies125 Updated 30 Mar 2006 , 5:02pm by Kitagrl
Hi...I have a question...I have a friend at work who wants me to make a wedding cake for a friend of hers in august.....she wants to pay for it because the friend doesn't have alot of money for the wedding, and I know this girl doesn't either. I would like to give her a deal since I know it's going to be a struggle to pay for....but here's the thing....she wants a round tiered wedding cake....it can be very simple she says...but it must feed 175 people.....175!!!!! How do you have a wedding on a budget and have 175 people? This is going to have to be a huge wedding cake....lots of tiers....I have no clue what to charge for something like this....I want to at least get what I put into it back out of it.....and if I don't make a profit...oh well, it will be good practice.....does anyone have any ideas of how much I should charge?
Wow, for not having alot of money, that is alot of folks! I don't think you should shortchange yourself because you know they are not rolling in money. Just charge per serving like you normally would. I find the chart on Erlene's site more realiistic as far as serving sizes and servings per cake size, so that would be a good start to estimate how much you will need. Even with simple decorations (which sometimes are the prettiest), it will be alot of work for that large a cake. Maybe even a smaller tiered cake, with a sheet cake on the side for extra servings might work out well.
Debbie
Once you've worked out how many tiers you'll need to serve that many people, work out what your material costs will be, including an allowance for boards, pillars or anything else you might not get returned, utilities and gas for delivery if applicable - that should be your very minimum charge! Seeing as this will be lots of work, I don't think allowing yourself 50% on top of the basic materials for yourself would be asking too much - you'd normally charge 2 - 3 times the basic costs anyway! Good luck with it all!
Keep in mind, too, that she may have saved up money for this cake or have more put back than you think. I would give the deal since she is your friend, but make sure you cover all your bases and get a little for your time as well. Maybe come up with a few choices as mentioned here, and let her choose which one fits her budget best.
Its actually easier than you think to have a budgeted wedding with that many people. I had more than over 150 people becaue I have such a large family, and only spent about 8000 total on my wedding. We have 4 tier's for our cake and thought 500 was a very reasonable price considering it is for a wedding and for that many people. Just realize that a budgeted wedding doesn't mean that the people expect to get something so elaborate for 100 or so. Realistically, most wedding cakes cost 1-2 thousand for that many people, so 500 or 750 may seem like a lot for a budget, but may be what they are expecting either way/ Don't feel bad quoting them a price. If they can't afford that price for whatever reason, try to figure something out that would be a compromise...make a smaller cake and have some undecorated iced cakes in the back that you can use for cutting and passing out. The chance that the guests will notice I would think is pretty slim. That would cut the expense for both you and them. First give her an accutate quote though. You may be surprised about her response.
That is good posting! Ten years ago, I only spent under $2000 on our very small wedding. Nowadays it is becoming common to take out a second mortgage just to pay for the wedding (I always wonder why they don't take that money and spend it in Europe for a fancy honeymoon instead!!!!) but for someone "on a budget" they still may have budgeted $5000 or more for their wedding and can afford a basic wedding cake.
You could get online and look at the prices for wedding cakes. In Los Angeles cakes are usually charged per serving. The lowest price I have ever seen $2.50 for a very simple wedding cake. That price was at a shop one hour out of L.A. When you factor in the shopping, ingredients, delivery and all the time spent on a cake you probably don't make much more than minimum wage. Here it is becoming more the norm to make a beautiful smaller bag along with a sheet cake that is cut behind the scenes in the kitchen.
I got married last year and we had what most people would call a budget wedding, it still cost us approx 10,000. To me thats not budget, thats expensive. But I know girls who have spent up to 70,000 on their Big Day.
Talking to some other brides on a wedding website at home though I realised budget to a lot of them is having a dress "only costing" 4,000.00, paying 1000 for 5 minutes fireworks because they can't afford 10 minutes, getting Gina Shoes in the Sale at 10% off but then they give out about what they pay the minister/priest officiating at the wedding because they thought they'd get away with 50......
Budgets and Weddings can be a very hot topic, lol.
I agree find out what your costs will be and make sure you have everything in it and then figure out how long it will take you to do it and go from there with your pricing. You can always make the suggestion of the sheet cake if your friend feels its more than she expected!
First, I would ask them what their budget is for the cake. And kinda go from there.
I totally see what you are saying but I have to respectfully disagree on this one...I've done that before and got cheated on a cake because obviously I didn't want to quote over their budget and on the other hand I didn't want to say "Well you can't have the cake you want" so...I ended up making the cake they wanted on their budget. I think its best to give several choices within several price ranges and let them choose the price range..
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