I realize of course that my question is somewhat dependent on my area, but what do businesses generally see are the month to month trend in wedding cake orders???

I'm only small and usually only have Expat customers, but my wedding orders have always been from May-September.

My buiest months are always October and December! (although July is booked full already for 2011)

Last year was my first year in business and by far, June and October were busiest for weddings. However, I've already got 3 booked for May.

I am almost completely booked from April through September. And the color purple has finally hit my area. Every bride is having a dark purple ribbon around the cake.

April through November here. Although this past Dec I had 6. I'm at 100% of my goal for 2011, so now I'm picking and choosing.

Are you guys finding increased requests for wedding cakes decorated with chocolate? that seems to be the trend in South Africa.

I love this thread!

If you are posting that you are completely booked can you share how many wedding cakes you take in a week?

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond. I hope to have my business up and running by mid-end of February. The information is very encouraging, although I do not expect to have bookings the upcoming season. Just interested in what the future may hold.

Oh God, the purple...The PURPLE! Yeah, there's a lot of that around now.

I'm usually booked solid from mid-March through mid-November, then everything comes to a halt, picks up again around new Year's, then another lull. Not that I don't have business from Dec-March, it's just slower.

Last year I was better about saying "I'm booked" so I didn't overbook myself more than three of four weekends. That would be between 5-7 wedding cakes from Fri-Sun on one weekend. One weekend I did nine cakes, and I was ready to kill somebody at the end of the weekend, so I won't do that again. I usually try to do no more than one on Friday, three on Saturday, then one on Sunday AT THE MOST. And I don't like doing that too much, either.

I'm not fully booked, just 100% at my goal for the year, which was fairly low. My little one will begin homeschooling this year so I'm cutting back a bit, and retooling to eliminate the insanity that was the celebration cake end of my business.
I'm taking no more than 1 on Fri, 2 on Sat, unless one of those is a cupcake wedding. My biggest problem is that I can DO more cakes, but I live 30-40 minutes from most of the venues in the area, so to deliver and setup more cakes becomes a logistical nightmare, especially since most venues don't allow access until 1pm, and want you gone by 3pm.

Last year I took 56 weddings. The most in one weekend was 6, with a bunch that had 3-4. If I only had weddings, it would have gone fine. But with celebration cakes of 10-15 per weekend, I was a mess, and still recovering.

I. HATE. PURPLE.

bring on the purple! It is my favorite color

Purple was the trend over here last year - so far i have NO purple cakes ordered for 2011.
Love the colour but so over doing purple -

This year here in Australia the trend seems to be leaning towards more softer shades - - Coral - Ivory - Cream.

Just wondering now if i have spoken oh to soon -

With Summer apon us and temps in the 40+C (110F) and humidtity you can cut with a knife i am surprised at the ammount of *Garden Weddings*

Feb will be hotter even still - and my orders are still for garden/ourdoor weddings - go figure.




Bluehue.

My main wedding season is May-October. Though this year we had weddings every weekend (except Christmas) in Nov. and Dec. too.

Purple was a huge color for us in 2010. Our 2011 brides are still naming various shades of purple as their "main color". Sage green is still popular too. I see several White/Hot Pink/Black wedding cakes on the books for 2011 too. The hot pink (which they are calling watermelon pink) by itself was pretty popular in 2010 too.

But...what I'm really seeing this past year and especially for the upcoming year is (what sounds like) very weird wedding color combos. Like royal blue and orange. Or turquoise and maize (yellow/orange gold). They don't sound like they go together. I always cringe when they tell me odd combos. But...they must know what they want because it all seems to come together well. When I deliver a cake to the venue and see it decorated, I usually am surprised it isn't awful I guess they just don't sound like colors I would put together myself. But...everyone's taste is different.

Loving this post...can't wait to see everyone's experiences.

I so enjoy when i get asked to do a coloured cake ..........
albeit lime green and purple (theres that purple again) or pink and orange - aquamarine and varidian ...no matter what occassion the cake is for.


Bluehue.

I have had several brides this week tell me their colors are dark grey and yellow. This could be an interesting year.

When I was in college I took a printmaking class, and my favorite ink was Payne's Grey...It's one of my favorite colors now, it's goooorgeous! It's a dark bluish grey, so it could be combined with all different colors and look really nice.

Winter brides seem to be using red or no accent color at all. Just a white cake with brie groom or silver topper. Summer brides seem to be using different shades of light blue. All in all, my brides do not lean to using a lot of color with their cakes and opt for traditional white buttercream with toppers. Most do not even want to use flowers!

I just booked a July 1st wedding and the colors are hot pink and tangerine.

I'm not a purple fan to begin with, and then you add the fading effect. Yeck.
I am doing a lot of the grey and yellow. And each time it seems to be a lovebird theme with branches and glitter in the centerpieces. Weird.
I do like that dark grey color though. Really really like it- so rich looking! But maybe not with purple...
It would probably work well with purple, but you know how I feel about purple...

I just got the new issue of Martha Stweart weddings, and there's a whole feature in it on grey. So get ready, it's coming!