Check With Your Reception Venue
Before you begin your cake quest, inquire whether your venue has certain regulations regarding wedding cakes. Some require that you use particular bakers (in-house or otherwise), while others may charge a fee for using your own. Next, find out if the cake designer meets the requirements of the local health department. (Most reception sites will not allow a baker without a license to serve cake on the premises.) Ideally, you should start shopping for a cake designer at least four to six months before the wedding — some of the country’s best cake designers can be booked a year in advance. If you have your hopes set on a marquee name, get on his or her calendar as soon as possible.

Consider The Cost
The price of wedding cake is generally calculated per slice, or according to how labor-intensive the design is. Prices can range from a few dollars to $15 per slice. Consider your cake: Will it require numerous layers? How many tiers? Do you want intricate designs, or something plain and simple? Will it require an engineering degree to get it in the door? All of these things will affect the price of your cake.

When it comes to decoration, adornment costs run the gamut. The most inexpensive option is fresh fruits or flowers that, in some instances, can be applied by your florist for a minimal fee. On the high-end is gumpaste or sugarpaste flowers, which are handmade and extremely delicate, painstakingly constructed one petal at a time. But here’s the bottom line: All add-ons — including marzipan fruits, chocolate-molded flowers, and lace points — will raise the rate.
Shipping is going to be an issue too. Most bakers will want to deliver the cake themselves, not trusting their masterpieces in the hands of anyone else. They’ll include delivery cost in the price of the cake or charge an additional delivery fee. Either way, have your baker do the honors — you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone else with the same know-how and the right vehicle, specifically a refrigerated truck. (In other words, this would not be a good time to ask your cousin if she wouldn’t mind picking up the cake for you.)

If you’re ordering a cake from a city other than where your wedding will take place, things will get a little trickier and more expensive. You’ll want to be sure that your baker has a sound way to transport your cake to your reception site (appropriate boxes, packing materials, and so on), and that the confection will be sufficiently insured in case of any mishaps. Some professionals will chose to buy the cake a plane ticket (at your expense, so be sure to inquire about this when working out your budget) and put it in a seat with the seatbelt fastened (we’re not kidding).

Finally, few people know about the cake cutting fee. If you don’t use an in-house baker, some venues will charge a fee for the cake cutting — from $1.50 to $3 a slice to divvy up the cake. When it’s all totaled, this can cost a pretty penny — so be sure to check with your reception manager or caterer before finalizing the budget.

Browse Cake Pictures But Stay Realistic
Yes, looking at beautiful pictures of cakes online or in magazines can be a delicious experience. But what happens in magazine-land doesn’t always work in the real world. Sadly, not all bakers can work the magic that you see whipped up in photos.

Magazines have food stylists, editors, and assistants working nonstop to keep the cakes looking perfect. These people spend hours fixing the sweating, dripping, leaning, or sagging that can happen to a cake after a while, or under hot lights. And if what they do doesn’t work, they can fix it with PhotoShop. They also have the luxury of creating cakes from stuff that isn’t edible — most cakes in magazines are iced pieces of Styrofoam, which from what we can tell certainly doesn’t taste very good.

The last thing that magazines don’t have to think about is logistics. Our favorite falsely advertised tidbit is the whole idea of the mini-cake, where each guest gets his or her own little confection that doubles as a favor. Many bakers agree that this is a great idea — in theory but not in practice. Not only does each cake require its own decoration (often as intricate, if not more, than one four times its size), each will require its own box. Unfortunately, boxes don’t come in mini-cake sizes. Often the bakery must construct individual boxes in which to transport these cakes. Multiply by however many guests you’ll be having, and you’ll see what a costly, time-consuming feat this actually is — very different from the one, five, or 10 little cakes that a magazine might produce for a shoot.

In the end, instead of finding something in print and aiming to replicate it in reality, choose elements of the cakes you love — shape, color, details — and let those elements simply inspire you, and your baker. Your cake designer will take it from there.

This post is part of a series about picking the perfect wedding cake and all the things included in the process. We’ve already told you about all the hidden wedding cake costs and tips to preserve wedding cake tops. Topics in this article include: wedding cake top, wedding cake toppers, personalized wedding cake toppers, vintage wedding cake topper, funny wedding cake toppers