Wedding cake on a budget

[NoEffingWay]

Looking for a wedding cake for next year.
Bakers charging around £350 which is just too much.
M&S and Ocado no longer do wedding cakes .
Any ideas welcome.
Got to feed 40-50 lovely but hungry greedy people!

Anyone in your family a dab hand at baking?
Get large ready made fruit cakes from Costco or similar, stack and ice them yourself?

Try to find a baker in training who may offer a reduced rate while they build experience?

Go for something none conventional like cupcake tower or donut wall?

Buy a cupcake display stand and make them yourself?

What style of cake were you after, ideally?

Do you have anyone who would be happy to make a cake, even if it were a plain iced cake or 'naked' style cake, that could be jazzed up? They would need to be a decent baker.

Waitrose still sell some pretty decorated and plain cakes.

I do think that a shop-bought cake can be beautifully enhanced with flowers or a funky personalised topper decoration (Etsy / Not On The High Street).

www.google.com/search?q=m%26s+cakes&client=safari&channel=iphone_bm&ei=hTm0YbL_HdKagQau_ZSIDg&oq=m%26s+cakes&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAEYATIGCAAQBxAeMgcIABCxAxBDMgYIABAHEB4yBggAEAcQHjIGCAAQBxAeMgUIABCABDIGCAAQBxAeMgUIABCABDoECAAQRzoICAAQBxAKEB46BAgAEEM6BgguEAoQQ1DjFVi9dWCqiwFoAHABeACAAXaIAZoHkgEEMTAuMZgBAKABAcgBCMABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#imgrc=LGjZcHoDkcYf3M

You get one to cut and have another spare to cut for guests - jyst keep it out the back, out of sight

Ours was an M&S fruit one but we bought a plain iced sponge cake from sainsburys which we didn't display but cut and served as an alternative. To be honest it looked the same. Most supermarkets so a plain cake that can be jazzed up with a ribbon around it, topper and fancy cake stand. You can have extra tiers out the back to cut if you don't want to display multiple tiers of the same size.

Example www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/undecorated-golden-sponge-cake/705438-100161-100162

Cake stands can enhance the look too, my venue had one I could borrow.

fruit version

Make it yourself. You can hire large cake tins.

Just cover it in buttercream, buy some sugar flowers and a nice topper. You could also do cupcakes. If you buy a fancy icing nozzle you can make them look very impressive - nifty nozzles from Sugar and Crumbs are very good.

Can you just get a fake cake made? Then you just have to pay for the decoration rather than the cake itself (although I have no idea how much that would save). Then you can just have a cheap sheet cake out the back for serving.

I’d be careful about spending money on a cake, I never even got a slice of mine.
I think the cupcake towers are lovely, and it seems more hygienic to me to have individual cakes.

We got M&S cupcakes, bough some sugar flowers on line as toppers and a cake stand, was for about 80 people. Looked good and was less than 350. It looked lovely too.

We cut a cupcake between us

Another vote for making your own. We borrowed tins and made carrot cake in advance then froze it. One word of warning though, the amount of mixture was insane. Had to mix in in a plastic tub as I didn't have a big enough bowl.

Yes cake stand full of cupcakes with some wedding themed decorations is a good idea. I think buying different size cakes and layering them like a tower would work (got to be all same cake flavour/type or similar). I haven't tried it but definitely plan to for next birthday (in prep for wedding) and buy appropriate decorations

My daughter had 50 people - I made 50 cup cakes, we iced them and put some "wedding" sprinkles on them. Bought a display holder for them, all done. Everyone loved being able to take their own little cake. probably cost us £ 25 for everything.

Just wait until Christmas is over and buy some Christmas cakes and freeze them.

My DD had a small cutting cake, then cupcakes for serving. I don't remember the cost, but she was within budget, and her small cake was lovely.

Yes, what kind of cake you want is probably the most important question.

If you can tell us your dream cake, then people can give advice on how to do it on a budget.

My mum was going to make our wedding cake, but was worried about making a massive cake in case it wasn't cooked in the middle or something. In the end she made about 12 different normal sized cakes of different kinds, and we had a cake buffet table. We cut one of the cakes for a photo. The guests seemed to like it. It definitely didn't cost anything like £350 and you could ask different people to make and bring one and make some yourself.

My mum is good at cakes but not a professional baker or anything.

We bought a great big cake tin and several family members made cakes, eg chocolate, madiera, red velvet. no special decoration, but they looked and tasted great!

I like the idea of a cake buffet, not everyone likes fruit cake.

If you want an impressive cake for photos then you can hire a dummy cake.

You rent them and then you have a cake out the back that the caterer cuts up and dishes out.

It doesn't matter what the cake out the back looks like as long as it's the same colour as the dummy cake.

I had a dummy tiers but one cake that I could cut for photos.

Sometimes it's all about the illusion.

Asda do a white, iced wedding cake (fruit). A friend used them for her wedding last year and had the florist make tiny floral displays for the top of each tier and she hired a wedding cake stand. They looked beautiful and the cake was delicious,

We didn't bother with a cake (and we spent quite a bit on our wedding). It wasn't missed. We gave everyone extra champagne instead.

Just seen Lola's cupcakes for nice ones for just over £100. But I still think.... "£100 on a cake!!! "

Congrats OP, and hope you have a wonderful day.

Waitrose do white iced cakes is various flavours could try those and add your own decorations they also do plain white iced cupcakes.

We had a very traditional wedding. I was young and my parents were paying. My mum made ours (3 tier fruit cake). She's an awesome cook. She had to hire really large tins and the quantity of mix was insane. I can still remember her upscaling the recipe and the ingredients were expensive too (cashew nuts etc).
My elderly great aunt iced it as our wedding present. It was absolutely beautiful. Royal icing, lace decoration plus icing flowers which I still have.
Royal icing sets like concrete though, and as it's old fashioned the caterers didn't have a knife man enough. My mum had to go home and get a proper blade mid reception (I had no idea).

These days I'd do cupcakes, which would be cheaper in terms of ingredients, and generally much more popular. You could have some really fancy decorated ones on a stand, then extras with just piped icing out the back for extra hungry people.