Anyone Exclusively Doing Wedding Cakes?
Decorating By SweetDreams Updated 23 Sep 2010 , 12:13pm by SweetDreams
6 yrs ago, I started making cakes for family and friends for all kinds of occasions. Because I have a young family and it was getting hard to put in the time to do many cakes and for very little $$, I just decided to stop for a while. It did not dawn on me to just maybe be more exclusive and only do wedding cakes. But anyway, I could not stop thinking about cakes!! I love it so much and it is the one thing that I really enjoy doing on my off mommy hours!!
So now, I was thinking of trying to do just exclusively wedding cakes for 2 reasons. First, I would not have so many smaller cakes to do all the time and I could actually make some decent money for my time.
Since I have been away from making cakes for a while, my questions are:
1. Do any of you exclusively do wedding cakes or would that maybe not work because people would start asking for other smaller occasions as well and is there really enough market out there to be exclusive in this? I would be happy having one wedding cake a month!
2. What would be the best way (besides referral) to get wedding cake clients? (website?, handing out flyers or business cards somewhere?, craigslist, etc.)
I have one wedding cake I am doing in Oct. and I am hoping to maybe get a referral or two from that but otherwise, what works best for getting out there again in just the wedding cake business?
Thanks so much for your help!!
Hello!
I'm from Michigan too! (and have two small kiddos 4 and under!) Its nice to see someone from your tribe every once and awhile I'm about 20 minutes west of Lansing
I dont have many words of wisdom, as I do all occasion cakes from my home business. However I would suggest possibly doing a bridal show in the future. You just need to market yourself to the right crowd. Maybe find a local photographer and/or venue that you could work with? Often times (I do this with both a photographer and caterer) you can give another industry business and vice versa. What bride doesn't have a photographer?
Have fun, and good luck!
Instead of doing wedding cakes exclusively, why not just enforce a minimum number of servings? That way you can avoid the small cakes that you don't want to do, but you won't be limiting who your clients are.
A website and business cards would help, advertising at bridal shops, bridal fairs, connecting with people in the wedding industry - planners, dj's, caterers, venues, etc.
I do 95% wedding cakes. I sell about two cakes per week - sometimes three - in peak season. Price was a big factor for me too. Here, where I am, people don't want to pay for birthday cakes.
I have a website and only advertise on the Internet. Nothing else. I am just not a good sales person, but I believe I am fairly reasonable baker
I think that 50 percent of my customers come from seeing my website and the other 50 from word of mouth.
I really like it. You get to deal with happy people and I find it very rewarding to be able to actually spend a lot of time to perfect one cake and see how happy it makes your customers (well, most of them anyway).
Ive just ordered 500 business cards to hand out to random people and have shops in my area wanting my cards on there shelf for there customers too. my daughter has set up a website just for her work collegues, she's a nurse, and finding this is helping me get on my feet. lots of luck honey xx
Hairdressin/beauty salons are a great place to find brides.
My brother's girlfriend owns a hairdressing salon, and suggested to me to put cards in there on the reception stand. She says they always get brides in there, and then they will invariably have the other girls from bridal party in there at same time, friends, sisters etc, who may also be future brides!
you could get half a dozen wedding cake orders in the future from just one card!
Hi! Another Michigander here! So glad you posted this question! I, too, have thought about only creating wedding cakes. I make several all occasion cakes monthly but my real interest is wedding cakes. Hopefully you will get some great ideas to get your business off to a good start!
I did birthdays and wedding for about 20 years and I decided that one or the other had to go. There was just not enough time to do both. Besides, people wanted 3-D birthday cakes (which took more time than a wedding cake sometimes) but they wanted to pay no more than $50 or $60 for them. I was working myself to death. With weddings, I didn't have to spend so much time on the internet looking things up, making teeny little pieces, drawing things, etc. And usually, for a wedding cake, I don't have to deal with 12 colors on the cake. I still have a lot of challenges with groom's cakes (they want the firetrucks, deer, etc.) so I get to do many unusual cakes still. But at least they are willing to pay for all the hours involved. I really thought that when I went from birthdays to weddings, that I would have a lot of down time. It didn't work out that way. I still have so much work that I have to turn people away for lack of hours to do them all. Fortunately, I haven't had to do any advertising. Word of mouth has keep me swamped. But when I first decided to do this, I took some cakes (with forks, plates & napkins) to the bridal shops in town along with some business cards. After that, they referred me to their clients.
robin58,
That is what I am thinking right now. That if I just do wedding cakes, I will still be able to have down time due to being specialized and maybe not getting as many cakes.
Right now, I can't even see how I will be getting more wedding cake orders after this one wedding cake I have in Oct. but I appreicate all of the advise of others who have given ideas.
I guess I just need to start talking about it more often to people also. At least that will let the word get out that I am doing wedding cakes.
Thanks Everyone!
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