Cruise/holmes Wedding Cake - Pricing???
Decorating By doreen1092 Updated 16 Feb 2010 , 11:14pm by catlharper
I have been asked to make a wedding cake similar to TomCats wedding cake. However, I do not know what to charge for handmade gum paste roses (there are a lot).
The cake will be fondant w/gum paste roses and fondant pearls, feeding 200-250. I have no idea what to charge. I would like to give her quotes w/fresh flowers or w/gum paste flowers.
Any help would be appreciated. 
That is a ton of roses you're talking about. http://storage.people.com/jpgs/20061204/20061204-750-90.jpg
I think they used a thin styrofoam round between each tier too, or several cakeboards to stick the roses in. If you look at the picture close up, you can see the border on each tier starting near the top of the roses. Those aren't necessarily fondant pearls though...piped dots of royal icing with the tips flattened would look exactly the same once you airbrushed it with pearl sheen.
You're probably talking several days just to make the roses. If I were trying to figure out how many roses I needed, I would figure out the diameter of the tiers and then divide that by how many inches across my roses were (figured by the size of the cutter). See how long it takes you to make a rose and you'll know what you're in for. I enjoy making roses but that really looks like a ton of roses to do.
I see that you're in San Antonio 
If you need a quick rose cutter, AGS on Blanco has the Jem ones (the best!) for $5.99. I'd get two sizes so you don't have to mess with thinning the outer petals more to make them bigger.
Beautiful cake...... but you're going to be sick of roses after making that cake! lol
I think fresh roses would look so much better on that cake, but that is just my personal opinion. It's a fairly simple design if you take out the gumpaste rose element.
Have you figured out how many roses you'd need (plus extra for breakage) to go around a cake to feed 200-250? If each rose has a diameter of approx. 2 inches, you can figure out the circumference of each tier and that should help you with an approximate number of roses to make. (hope that makes sense). Example- circumference of a 16" round is 50.24" add a little extra and you'd need about 25-30 roses (if they average 2") I'd say just to go around that one tier.
As for pricing- I think most people here charge by the amount of time it takes them to make the flowers plus cost of ingredients. If you are doing fresh flowers, you can have the bride arrange that with her florist.
This cake is similar to one I did for a friend's daughter several years ago (it's in my pics). I had never done gp roses at the time and had no idea of how time consuming they were. I think I charged around $450, but had I known I would have charged much more. Today I would charge around $5 - $6 per serving.
1-1/2 inch fondant roses cost about $1.40 to purchase here...I charge $2 each when I do a wedding cake. That's about a couple of hundred here so they will add another $400 to the cost of the cake. Having said that, the actual cake under it all seems pretty uncomplicated and I would charge about $4 a slice so $800 for a 200 slice cake plus the $400 for the roses would add up to $1200. I'm sure TomKat paid at least triple that amount for theirs.
If you use fresh flowers I would have them purchase them from the florist and have the florist deliver them to the hall so you can insert them during set up. If you go that direction, make sure YOU have the florists name and number so you can immediately get in touch with them and discuss the order and delivery.
Cat
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