Cut The Cost Of Your Wedding Cake

Don’t feel obliged to stick to the traditional tiered wedding cake.

A new trend emerging is the tiered wedding cupcake where the cupcakes replace the traditional wedding sliced cake. It’s cheaper and aesthetically pleasing.

Order a plain wedding cake and decorate it yourself. Search the internet, wedding magazines and visit bakers for inspiration.

Rather than opting for a large decorative cake, opt for a smaller sized one and supplement the extra pieces with inexpensive dessert dishes.

Home based bakers and small bakeries often are significantly cheaper as they have fewer expenses themselves.

Trash The Dress

Wedding dresses once worn are preserved and carefully looked after by the bride, right? Well that’s not always the case; many brides are now trashing their dresses. They are going to the beach rolling around in sand, waiting for a rainy day and lying in the mud or splattering themselves in paint. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

(photo source: http://www.bluenaluphotography.com)

Frosted wedding cake + just add flowers

One way of achieving a stunning looking cake for a cheaper price is to order a basic frosted cake and then garnish it with fresh flowers. This can look especially stunning when the colours of the flowers are the same or closely resemble those used in the bride’s bouquet.

Wedding Cakes

I just love the wedding cake that Marcia Cross had at her wedding to Tom Mahoney. It doesn’t really look like anything that you would want to eat, but it is such a beautiful work of art that would be a striking inclusion at any wedding.

Have two wedding cakes

One popular method of keeping the cost of the wedding cake down is to have one small cake for show and to be given to the bride, groom and bridal party and a regular wedding sheet cake for the guests. This won’t faze guests as they will understand that one wedding cake may not be enough to distribute to all the guests

10 Ways To Cut The Cost Of Catering

Catering is one area of your wedding where a great portion of your budget will fall. Careful planning and consideration is needed to ensure that you end up with great food at a reasonable price.

Find out upfront if children’s meals will be cheaper than the adult rate. At most restaurants and venues this is always the case and it shouldn’t be any different for a wedding.

Get an itemized quote to ensure that you are fully aware of any ‘hidden charges’ and to ensure that the cost includes the price of labour. It’s not uncommon for this to pop up afterwards.

Find out what the minimum guest count is for the caterer as if you do not have the required amount you may be charged additional fees.

You would have never thought of it, but more often that inconspicuous little food shop near your house offer catering services for all budgets. Ask for typical menus and sort of services they offer, hot or cold platters, etc.

There are many home-based part-time catering businesses run by retired chefs who want to earn a bit of extra money by offering their services to special events and weddings. They usually offer their services at a heavily reduced price than there competitors and the one-on-one service ensure that they know exactly what you are after.

Many reception venues and caterers will charge you a cake-cutting fee, which means that you will be charged ed for every slice of cake! This often only applies for cakes brought from outside venues as it is supposed to entice you to buy your wedding cake from the venue where you reception will be held. Find this out upfront as it can work out to be quite costly (typically around $1.50 per guest)

Save money on the wedding cake

When choosing wedding cakes, try not to opt for the extras such as the fancy pillars to sit the different cake layers onto, as this just pushes the price up. Layer the cakes on top of each other. The cake may lose a little height, but your wallet won’t mind.

If you are still keen on having the different layers of the wedding cake sit on the different pillars, don’t buy one, rent one. Ask around former brides and grooms to see if they still have theirs and won’t mind loaning it to you. If you have no luck, ask the wedding cake baker if they can hire one out to you.

The Open Bar vs. The Cash Bar

This is often a touchy issue with couples planning a wedding and its easy to see why. If you’re not careful an open bar can end up costing around $20 per guest. If you have 100 guests, well that’s easily $2000 of your budget, no wonder couple love the idea of a cash bar (where guest pay for their own drinks) Wedding etiquette suggests that a cash bar should be avoided, but is there a compromise that can save the couple some money yet still allow them the option of providing drinks for their guests?

1. Carefully plan your open bar. Stick to champagne, wine and beer and avoiding spirits and shots as this can easily add up.

2. Limit the time that the bar is open.

3. If you will be buying the alcohol yourself do it at the right time of year when there will be specials on such as New Years Eve or before a national sporting event.

4. Find out if your local alcohol stores have any free vip customer loyalty memberships where you can pick up great discounts.

5. Negotiate the removal of the corkage fee.

6. Prearrange a certain time for bartender to stop uncorking bottles as you don’t want to end up paying for ten bottles of only partially used bottles.

Have a Lunchtime Wedding to Save on Catering Costs

One way to reduce the cost of your catering is to have a lunchtime wedding rather than an evening one. Evening weddings generally consist of a more elaborate and larger meal for dinner. You could still have a tantalising lunch time menu for a significantly reduced cost.

Another bonus is that people (well most people anyway) tend to drink less for lunch time weddings rather than evening one saving you money.

Potluck Weddings

I was recently asked for my views on a pot-luck wedding. The couple didn’t want a fancy wedding, just a small ceremony to symbolise their commitment to each other. They have limited funds, and would prefer to save the small amount of savings they do have towards a house deposit. They are excited about the possibility of a pot-luck wedding to be held in their backyard, but would hate to be seen as impolite or tacky.

Personally I think that pot-luck weddings can work in certain situations. Firstly, it is best suited to smaller weddings. If your guest list is somewhere in the 100+ range, it can just get chaotic coordinating all that food.

Whilst most guests will string bring a gift to a pot-luck wedding, it is rude to ask for money in lieu of gifts when you are also asking guests to bring a meal. This will just be seen as greedy.

In the next few days we will publish a complete guide detailing how to successfully throw a pot-luck wedding, detailing steps from the invitation wording to the actual wedding day.

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