How Do You Feel About Making Fake Wedding Cakes For Brides?
Business By cakequeen50 Updated 24 Jan 2014 , 6:34pm by SystemMod1
AJust want to say there are many ways to offer a bride or anyone to customize their cake ! What we as the fake cake demons do is offer a canvas of fondant stacked tiers !!! That can be accessorized to their hearts content! The best part about this business is the valuable time it allows me to have with my family no more late nights covering real cake - I do my orders weeks in advance allowing me to take on the extra orders I would never be able to take on had I been making these cakes real. I love giving the smaller parties the wow factor w/ a big cake that would go to waste had it been reAl & unaffordable. Did all of you haters check out the queen of fake cakes eh had a booming business ! Fun cakes.com yeah people it can be done and some people are really successful doing it so I'm giving it a try in my state so they have a local place to get their fake as opposed to paying the extra cost to have it shipped.
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I don't think this will affect the CUSTOM cake business. My clients come to me to have me design a cake specifically for them, based off their dress, their custom invitations, their wedding and party designs. not to re-use an old design that has been displayed in multiple weddings in their area for months. It may be a help to chain stores or lower-end decorators who don't want to offer custom designed cakes, but I don't see it affecting the CUSTOM cake business. Dummy displays have been around for a long time, they might put a dent in the low-to-mid price range but there will always be people looking for unique cake designs and seek out decorators who can design as well as decorate. It's no different in concept than the places who "rent" wedding dresses so brides don't have to buy. They've been around a long time too, not going after the same clients.
wow not a high opinion of peeps who do dummy cakes-- lots of high end cakers do dummies for big money customers and fill in with servings in undecorated cake and i've seen it advertised this way too--of course it's another nail in the coffin to me--especially because it is becoming more acceptable--i've also heard that it has longtime been common in japan in extravagantly decorated cake dummies especially at the very high dollar weddings-
and i believe there's tons of clients wanting to save a buck this way--sure there's the ones who want CUSTOM cakes but it's a newer option as a business and it surely does draw from the whole cake spectrum--where else would it come from--top to bottom
yes there'll always be a market for boutique cake shops but with the influx of more & more cottage laws business is not getting any easier -- so you might not see it but the dummy thing is going to impact imo--in fact you might even want to embrace it--if you are trying to make money--if you are able to be artsy and this is a side line because you are supported elsewhere then you can make other choices--
and as far as a tipping point this market does not have much more to go to get there--
Whoa, back it up and put the knife down! Geez K8 LOL! The dummy cake concept was mentioned as a way for clients to SAVE money on wedding cakes. If you are hiring a high end designer, you are NOT saving money having them decorate a dummy cake, most of the expense is in the decorating. I embrace dummies, it allows a creative outlet to try new techniques or build a unique portfolio or have stylized magazine shoots. These are 2 separate things you are talking about. Dummies to "save" on the cost of wedding cake prices are not going to be highly stylized and custom deisgned dummies are going to be as (or almost) as expensive as a real cake -- totally different things. If I have a client who wants a dummy cake all stylized -- AWESOME -- I'd do it in a heartbeat and offer kitchen cakes for the servings. But saying it's "another nail in the coffin of custom cake business" is a little far-fetched. The client who wants rock bottom prices, is not my client and I don't think it's having a "low" opinion of chain stores who use dummies. I shop at discount stores and I know there's a limit to what they can offer. I don't have to agree with your thinking or you with mine. It gets a little old having you jump down everyones throat who isn't as "nice" as you think they should be only to have you bite anyone else who doesn't agree with your opinion. Little bit of a double standard there, and just because YOU read more into what I said doesn't mean I meant it that way.
i get annoyed by some of us like sixinarow who use a term like 'lower-end decorators' to describe any portion of cakedom then to me with that my 'knives are out, lol', that i'm using a 'double standard', that i'm jumping down throat, 'gets old', that i'm biting--
i am free and clear to respectfully discuss and converse as i follow the rules on the forum--not according to anyone else's view of me--
the pressure point for me is that i can decorate i can design i can do it all and i take umbrage that you have designated me into a decorator that is lower-end and cannot do or do not choose to these things--
i am not a lower-end decorator no matter how many double standards and bites and throats are mentioned--
also i always think of howsweet and how she so diligently plows the field of the underpricing/cutting many because she makes her living at this--so i thought of her when i said 'another nail in the coffin'--if such rent-a businesses ever took off and while they are not exactly gaining momentum they are increasing in number--
it's freaking hard to have a cake shop--i believe that any blip in the space time continuum could bruise it some more--
i watched the demise of mom & pop neighborhood bakeries--this with cake shops looks very similar to me--and it's different if you have a side line business or are sole provider with it--
I did a fake cake last year for a bride who wanted a seven tier cake but only had 200 guests the top 5 tiers were fake. the bottom tier was a fruit cake and the next tier was sponge. It allowed her to have the impressive cake she wanted without having a ton of cake left over. I think fake cake has its place depending on the situation. The fake cake went into a shop display and earned me more business.
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i get annoyed by some of us like sixinarow who use a term like 'lower-end decorators' to describe any portion of cakedom then to me with that my 'knives are out, lol', that i'm using a 'double standard', that i'm jumping down throat, 'gets old', that i'm biting--
i am free and clear to respectfully discuss and converse as i follow the rules on the forum--not according to anyone else's view of me--
the pressure point for me is that i can decorate i can design i can do it all and i take umbrage that you have designated me into a decorator that is lower-end and cannot do or do not choose to these things--
i am not a lower-end decorator no matter how many double standards and bites and throats are mentioned--
Wow. There are different price points to every business, low and high. Low does not mean lowly. THAT is what I meant. You have a personal issue with me, K8? You go off your tangents and don't care who you hurt in your biting remarks and are the first to criticize others for not showing respect to those who you see deserving. Apparently, it is not to everyone on this forum. THAT is what I meant about your double standard. Take it to a PM instead of trying to flush an entire thread and get it locked and deleted...again.
I don't think anyone is saying that a fake cake biz couldn't work. Just simply saying that just because it is styrofoam on the inside, doesn't mean it has to be CHEAP. If you are peddling (and that isn't a negative word... I peddle cake everyday) blank cakes that they put all of their own decos on then that would obviously warrant a much lower price tag than would a fully decorated, custom dummy. If it works... great! Not for me, but I am not trying to get in the way of anyone's dream. I just want to make sure that everyone gets paid well for their efforts. And what is well for me might be more than well for someone else, but we should ALL be making minimum wage... if you don't then you are better off getting a job at McDonald's or in the bakery at WalMart where you will make minimum wage. As professional decorators I think we all should be making at least double minimum wage... I can't force that on anyone (nor would I try), but people need to value their time or customers never will.
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Original message sent by -K8memphis
also i always think of howsweet and how she so diligently plows the field of the underpricing/cutting many because she makes her living at this--so i thought of her when i said 'another nail in the coffin'--if such rent-a businesses [I]ever[/I] took off and while they are not exactly gaining momentum they are increasing in number--
it's freaking hard to have a cake shop--i believe that any blip in the space time continuum could bruise it some more--
i watched the demise of mom & pop neighborhood bakeries--this with cake shops looks very similar to me--and it's different if you have a side line business or are sole provider with it--
The business world is dog eat dog and I'm fine with that. It drives me crazy to deal with these smug cake people who think themselves such nice people who make a mess worse than any real business competitor would.
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Wow. There are different price points to every business, low and high. Low does not mean lowly. THAT is what I meant. You have a personal issue with me, K8? You go off your tangents and don't care who you hurt in your biting remarks and are the first to criticize others for not showing respect to those who you see deserving. Apparently, it is not to everyone on this forum. THAT is what I meant about your double standard. Take it to a PM instead of trying to flush an entire thread and get it locked and deleted...again.
*like button*
I loved the thinly veiled jab about husbands. For some reason it put that annoying song, 'true colors' in my head.
It's different for the caker who isn't supporting their household with their income, but it's not different for the whole profession. That's a big caveat right there. It might not matter to the individual if they make pennies per hour, but it also hurts those who cannot work like that. It is hard all around really. And I'm not talking about the person in rural somewhere charging $3/slice in comparison to someone in NY who sells at $10... it's the people in NY selling on the sly for $3/slice and the people who have to charge $10/slice to make rent having to compete with them. It does effect the business owner because it drives down the overall value of cake in their area.
You constantly bring that up K8. How it is different for the hobby baker. It really isn't though. In their minds it might be, but to the cold hearted monster that is being in business... it has no bearing on the bottom line, and if you are selling things you are, by default, swimming with the big fish. Super cheap bakers really do make it harder for the ones trying to actually run a business, be they hobbyists or a home baker doing 10 cakes a weekend. It's like the shack at the end of the road that no one takes care of and it drives house prices for the area down. No one would say "oh but it's just a hobby house. It has no bearing on the market." That would be ludicrous. It's the same with the baking industry.
Sorry to take it a little off track. To bring it back. I think fake cakes are fine, so long as you charge well for them. Fake blank cakes (with nothing but fondant and a base board) should definitely be cheaper than a decorated dummy, but still enough so that you make plenty for the time. Different business all together, and I don't think that it would effect the baking industry too much on the whole.
I'm not reading thru a debate and thread created in JULY. This has gotten several flags about how "rude" and "mean" and "off topic" and other junk. I don't care, this is getting locked. Consider yourselves all warned to keep it civil, keep it nice, respectfully disagree or you can leave CC. If something "offends" your delicate sensibilities I suggest you move on to another thread rather then engage in a pointless debate.
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