Q. Do you require a deposit for a wedding?
A. We require a 50% deposit with the final payment 2 weeks prior to the wedding.
Q. How far in advance should I order my cake?
A. We usually book up popular dates 4-6 months in advance, but during certain times of the year we only need a week to a couple of weeks notice. It’s best to call/email early and inquire about specific dates.
Q. How much cake should I order?
A. In general, you should see how many guests will be at the reception and order a cake for about 90% of that number. However, there are many other factors that might affect how many servings you’ll need, including how many flavors of cake you choose to have, whether you’ll be serving alcohol at the reception, whether your friends and family are big cake-eaters or not, and whether the wedding cake will be the only dessert.
Q. Do all bakers use the same sizes for cakes?
A. No. To some cake shops, a 3 tier cake that consists of a 12″ round, 9″ round, and a 6″ round, feeds 100 guests. Based on our serving chart, those same cakes feed just 84 guests.
Yep, you read that right. You can order the exact same size cake from 2 different companies and one will charge you for 84 servings and the other will charge you for 100 servings. If the 100 serving place is $3.50 a serving and Piece of Cake charges $4.00 serving… then we are more expensive right? Not so much. (84 servings x $4 = $336, 100 servings x$3.50 = $350). And now you know how a $4.00 per serving cake can be less expensive than a $3.50 per serving cake.
Don’t get me wrong, the bakers that say that configuration feeds 100 guests aren’t trying to screw anyone, they are just using the industry standard Wilton serving chart to calculate their servings… most bakers use it. We just prefer to give a little more and let you pay for a little less. My tip: Always ask what sizes your cake layers will be so that you can accurately compare 2 or more companies wedding cake pricing.
Q. Do people really eat the top tier of their wedding cake after it has been frozen for a year?
A. Sure some do, but we certainly don’t recommend it! Can you imagine busting out a bag of tater tots that have been in your freezer for 12 months to celebrate a special occasion (I’ve done it, it’s not as cool as it sounds). But since it is tradition to eat the top tier on your 1st anniversary, and My Batter Half would never rob you of tradition, we would be happy to create you a small, fresh cake at no charge! 11 months or so after the wedding, just shoot us an email and we will be happy to make your first anniversary a little sweeter!
Q. Can we use Fresh Flowers directly on my cake?
A. Absolutely. Fresh flowers are a wonderful accent on a wedding cake, however you do need to be careful. Fresh Flowers to go on a cake have possibly been treated with insecticides and pesticides and some flowers and greenery are just straight up poisonous. Check with your florist first!!
Q. Why are your cakes so much more expensive than cakes that you buy at the store or bakery?
A. Our cakes are much more labor-intensive than, for instance, a regular store bought birthday cake. The difference lies in the fact that many of the decorations on our cakes have to be made ahead of time, and the cake itself takes much longer to assemble due to the fact that they’re usually just more complex of a design! They’re built with a system of supports and separators that prevent them from collapsing, and it takes time to put it all together. The cost of the ingredients, while more for some types of cake than others, is usually not the deciding factor in the cost of a wedding cake. Rather, the type of decoration and the time involved in assembling the cake itself is what determines the final cost. You are also paying for the expertise of the baker/decorator, and this is one time that you often “get what you pay for.”
Q. We have a limited budget, and I am not sure if we can get the cake we want for what we can afford to spend. Can we still talk about ordering a cake?
A. Of course! Don’t be afraid to bring up your budget with us or other vendors. We would rather have someone tell us how much they’ve been planning on spending up front, rather than find out after we’ve gone through the design process that the cake we’ve worked out is beyond what they were looking to spend. We find that most people who come to talk to us have a reasonable idea of how much a cake will be, but the cost of some types of decorations can add up. It’s better to talk about your budget right away if it’s a big issue, so that we can work with it while designing the cake.
Q. If we get a fake cake for display and serve sheet cakes is it cheaper than having a real entire wedding cake?
A. Nope. A small number of decorators actually do charge less for this but for the life of me I cannot figure out why, neither can most other bakers that we know. Let me explain why… Let’s say you want to serve 160 people and you want a 4 tier cake. If the whole wedding cake were real, here is the ultra simplified breakdown of the steps the baker takes. 1. the baker buys the ingredients for your 4 tiers, 2. bakes them up, 3. decorates them.
If the display cake is fake and you have sheet cakes to feed the 160 guests, here are the steps they now need to take. 1. Buy the 4 tiers of styrofoam for the fake tiers (which could cost $20 – $40 for all four) , 2. buy the ingredients for the 160 servings, 3. Decorate the styrofoam layers, 4. Bake the sheet cakes, 5. Decorate the sheet cakes (usually done with simple decorations)
In short the baker actually spends more money on ingredients (due to the styrofoam layers) and decorates 6 cakes instead of 4 if they go with the “display cake & sheets cakes” method.
Q. I have heard that fondant tastes terrible, is that true?
A. Unfortunately fondant gets a bad rap because the one brand of fondant that is most readily available nationwide tastes… well… like feet. We make our fondant from scratch and tastes like marshmallows and many a “fondant hater” has been caught eating globs of it during our tastings. We’ve actually been told it tastes a lot like those Circus Peanut candies.
Q. We want to have an outdoor reception. How will this affect our cake choices?
A. Since heat is the mortal enemy of buttercream, an outdoor reception will limit your choices, sometimes severely. Depending on the weather, you may have to go with fondant as a covering for your cake, since buttercreams will melt and slide off the cake if it’s too hot. You may also have to avoid fillings that are perishable, depending on how long the cake will be sitting out in the heat. If it’s at all possible, you could arrange to keep the cake in an air-conditioned area until it’s time to cut it, and this might open up your options a little.
Another consideration is wind. If your buttercream cake is sitting outside at any time of year and the wind starts stirring up dirt… you are probably going to have dirt & twig pieces embedded into your cake. With fondant a lot of that stuff will bounce off leaving your cake looking pretty for photos. We recommend fondant for all outdoor receptions because of this reason.
Q. Can we get more than one flavor of cake, or does it all have to be the same?
A. You can have as many flavors as you have cake tiers, and at no extra charge. If you do choose to have more than two flavors you may want to order a larger cake than you would normally, because people tend to go back for seconds if there are more than two flavors… especially if the cake is really good.
