Hello, I've been asked to make my very first wedding cake. The bride wants a 3 tier round, fondant covered red velvet wedding cake to feed 150 people, with fresh flowers running on the side of the cake. We never discussed the filling and didn't really want to ask her, because since she mentioned she wanted red velvet.....my first though was cream cheese, but I can ask that question later.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Which would be best to cover a wedding cake, regular fondant or Marshmellow fondant?

2. How thick should the fondant be?

She kept wanting to know a price and since I've never done a wedding cake didn't know what to charge I just thought, I would throw out a figure to her to see what her reaction will be. So I told her wedding cakes can run up to $2500, that's before she told me she wanted fresh flowers running down the side of the cake. So I told her that fresh flowers would be more.

After hanging up I just did a small calculation of the price of ingredients vs the # of people, and from reading here on CC wedding cake normally start any where from $10 per slice to $20 and up.

Do you think I was a bit off line on my quote?

What is regular fondant? I personally like MFF as I find it very easy to work with and it taste great! I seldom use MMF since MFF is about the same cost to make. If you are going to buy premade fondant I love Satin Ice or Fondarific.

Good luck to you with your cake and be sure to post pictures.

Wow, to me that's really high. I don't sell wedding cakes, but in my area fondant covered wedding cakes go for $5 - $7 per serving from established bakeries.

As for the fondant, I used to use MMF until I gave in and tried MFF. MFF is hands-down the winner. It's the closest I've come to Satin Ice, which I find awesome to work with, but is obviously much more expensive. It's a little more work to make than MMF, but I spend less time screwing around with it when I'm trying to put it on the cake because it's so much easier to work with.

That would be very high priced for me. My fondant begins at $4 a slice for a "plain" cake with very little decoration. I would probably price this one at $5 per slice since I would have to insert straws for the fresh flower placement and then get the fresh flowers from the florist in time to place the flowers before the reception..so kind of a hassle and worth the extra $150. So I would be charging $750 plus delivery fee of $50 if it is within an hour of my kitchen for this wedding cake. BTW...since you have never worked with fresh flowers remember that you can never just push them into a cake...they must either be wrapped in plastic wrap or inserted into straws so that they do not come in contact with the cake itself. Some flowers are even poisonous so you have to be VERY careful with them.

good luck!

what's MFF ? Please and thank you.

MFF is Michelle Foster's Fondant...

Here's the links to the recipes here on Cake Central:

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/3663/michele-fosters-delicious-fondant

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/7446/michele-fosters-fondant

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/7432/michele-fosters-updated-fondant

As AngelaM said MFF is very easy to work with. Really you should give it a try. I think you will find it is worth the effort. I agree with her that it is a little more work than MMF but so worth it!

As far as pricing goes, $5.00 a serving is what established bakeries in my area charge.

Try out white chocolate fondant. I roll mines between 1/16"-1/8" thin.

Honestly, I think the price is a bit to high, especially knowing that you haven't done a wedding cake.

Good luck.

I agree with Rylan, you should try the white chocolate fondant. MFF just add white chocolate. It is so yummy but best of all so easy to work with.

oh boy, I'm so glad I finally got my internet back.

AngelaM - thank you for the tip on MFF, will have to try it.

catlharper - Thank you as well for the tip on the fresh flowers I would have really screwed that cake up big time. I never new that, I just thought they put the flowers right into the cake. Hope the florist supplies the plastics for the flowers when it's time to order.

Rylan - White Chocolate fondant? Will have to give that a try on one of my dummie cakes that I will be making.

And again thank you for your input on my quote. I'm in the New York City area and it seemed to me to be a very close quote. But will be doing my homework on this and start to check local bakeries to find out. Thanks again everyone.