What a wedding cake costs, what is included, and when a smaller one is enough

The price of a wedding cake comes from four things: how many portions, how many tiers, which filling, and how much hand decoration. The last of those is the biggest variable, because it is measured in hours. A custom cake always costs more than one from the regular range, since it is baked, filled and decorated for one particular wedding. If you have a fixed budget, that is workable. You just need to know what raises the price and what does not.

What makes up the price

The first number we need from you is the portion count. It decides the diameter of each tier and the amount of cream, which is to say how much gets baked and filled. We make custom cakes from ten portions up to eighty and beyond, so the gap between a small reception and a full hall is a real gap in price.

Tiers raise the price more than the weight of the cake does. Each tier is baked separately, filled separately and levelled separately to straight edges, and the whole cake has to be structured internally so it stands for hours in a warm room. Two tiers means twice the levelling, not twice the batter.

The filling matters too. Vanilla cream with seasonal fruit or a Belgian chocolate ganache is priced differently from a plain cream base, because the ingredients start from a different place. For chocolate fillings we work with Belgian and French chocolate, and you can taste that in the first mouthful.

Decoration is the largest variable in the whole budget. Hand-modelled flowers, pearls placed one at a time, cast chocolate leaves: all of it is counted in hours of work, not in grams of material. Two cakes with the same portion count can cost noticeably different amounts purely because of the surface and the ornament.

What is always in the price: a recipe we tested until the flavour, texture and smell sat together properly. Belgian and French chocolate. Fruit in season. And a cake with no preservatives and no artificial flavourings. Those are the things we do not cut, even when the budget comes down.

Delivery, the time of arrival at the venue, and a stand or board if you need one, are agreed separately. Delivery to a venue has its own logic: the cake arrives as close as possible to the time it gets cut, so it does not sit through the whole ceremony in the warmth.

Tell us the budget in the first email. We will suggest whether to drop a tier or simplify the decoration. Usually one of the two is enough.

The white wedding cake, and what changes its price

White is the most requested finish, because it works with any hall and any dress. It cannot clash with the flowers on the tables or the shade of the linen, so it is a decision you can make before the rest of the styling is settled.

What changes the price is the surface. Smoothly levelled cream, textured cream with visible layers, and fondant are three different amounts of work, and fondant takes the most time and the most precision. With smooth white cream there is also nowhere to hide: every unevenness shows.

A cake without fondant, with cream on the sides and fruit on top, is one of the calmer answers for a smaller wedding. It looks soft, it can be cut without anyone parking a piece of fondant on the edge of their plate, and it sits lower in the budget than fondant with modelled ornament.

A white surface is unforgiving about small flaws, so we allow more time for levelling. That is also why a white cake with genuinely straight edges is not the cheapest option, even though it looks like the simplest one in a photograph.

One practical note on the shade: a truly white icing is affected by the colour of the butter and cream that go into it. A faint cream tone is natural, and next to a white dress it reads warmer than a cold white does.

From the regular range

Belgian Chocolate Cake, from €43. A strong chocolate cake made with real 72% Belgian chocolate and homemade mirabelle jam. It works as a smaller cutting cake and again on the second day of the wedding.

Belgian Chocolate Cake with Strawberries, from €43. The fresher option alongside the main cake while strawberries are in season, with mascarpone cream and fresh fruit between the layers.

Parisian City Cake, from €38. Plums marinated in cognac and Parisian cream: the choice for adult guests, when you want something more pronounced next to the wedding cake and no colour on it at all.

Gluten-Free Chestnut Truffle Cake, from €38. A naturally gluten-free sponge with no flour in it, so the guest with an allergy gets the same cake as everyone else rather than a weaker substitute.

Flowers on the cake: fresh, sugar or dried

There are three ways to put flowers on a wedding cake, and each one has a different price and different demands. Deciding which of the three you want is worth doing before you decide how many, because the gap between the methods is bigger than the gap between one tier and two.

With fresh flowers, the florist doing your venue usually supplies them, so they match the bouquet and the tables. We wrap the stems so nothing gets into the cream, and some species do not go on a cake at all. We can arrange this with your florist directly; all we need is a contact.

Sugar flowers are modelled by hand. One rose can take an hour, so the price comes from the number and the size of the flowers, not from how complicated they look in a photo. The advantage is that a sugar flower survives a whole warm evening, and you can keep it after the wedding.

Dried flowers and cotton stems are the quieter and cheaper option with a similar effect. They work well on a cream surface without fondant and they photograph softly, particularly at autumn and winter weddings.

Fewer flowers in one place on the cake looks stronger and costs less than flowers scattered across every tier. One cluster on the seam between tiers does more than eight flowers going all the way round.

Silver balls, metallic details and what you pay for

A wedding cake with silver balls is built from edible pearls placed one at a time with tweezers. The price is the time, not the material, so the same rule applies as with flowers: what counts is the number and the area they have to cover.

A band of pearls around the seam between tiers, or a scattering in one corner, is a different job from a cake covered in them. If what you like in the photo is the all-over effect, count on several hours of placing.

There are other ways to a similar effect: fine chocolate shavings, leaves cast from dark Belgian chocolate, or a geometric texture worked into the cream. All of them look considered and all of them sit lower in the budget.

We do not recommend metal ornaments that are not meant to be eaten, even though they show up in inspiration photos constantly. On a cake that gets cut in front of guests, we want only things that can be eaten or safely lifted off.

When a cheaper answer is the right answer

At a small wedding of up to twenty guests you do not need tiers. One cake of a sensible size plus a few desserts covers both the portions and the ceremony of cutting, and the budget stays one number instead of three.

At a large wedding with a dessert table, it pays to invert the order: a smaller decorated cake for the cutting, and sheet cakes made from the same recipes alongside. Guests get the same flavour, the portions are covered, and you pay for one decorated cake instead of three tiers of ornament.

Guests ask for chocolate more than anything else, which is why the Belgian Chocolate Cake from our range works so well here. The sponge, the filling and the coating are all real 72% Belgian chocolate, with homemade mirabelle jam inside and real Belgian ganache, finished with dark or white chocolate shavings. It takes its cue from a Sacher, so it is pronounced without being heavy.

You can order it straight from the regular range, where the current price sits next to the cake. It also works for the second day of the wedding, or for a smaller family gathering after the ceremony once the main cake has gone.

The other calm choices next to the main cake are the Parisian City Cake for adult guests, with plums marinated in cognac and Parisian cream, and the Belgian Chocolate Cake with Strawberries while the fruit is in season. Both come from the range, so the price is clear in advance and does not depend on hours of decorating.

How to order, and what to tell us

The fastest route is the form on our site, then email, then the phone. The form has the advantage of capturing the date and the guest count immediately, so nothing gets lost in transcription. Everything works in English.

Send us the wedding date, the number of guests, the delivery address, and one or two photos as inspiration. More does not help, rather the opposite. From two images we can read what it actually is that you like: the surface, the flowers, or the shape of the tiers.

Tell us about allergies and diets among the guests. We make gluten-free, lactose-free, raw and sugar-free cakes, and it is worth mentioning at the start, because it affects the choice of sponge and filling, not just one plate at one seat.

Deal with the date early. Wedding season fills several months ahead, and on any given Saturday we can take only a certain number of cakes, so that each one gets the time it needs. Book 6 to 8 weeks ahead, or 3 to 4 months between May and September.

We are a family cake studio in Petržalka and we have been baking since 2012, so pickup and delivery can be settled over the phone. If you are unsure about the size or the number of tiers, write with the guest count and the date and we will work the rest out together.

The price of a wedding cake can be shaped before you add a tier: fewer flowers in one place, a cream surface instead of fondant, and sheet-cake slices from the same recipe next to a smaller decorated cake make a large difference to the budget and none at all to the taste. Send us the date, the guest count and the delivery address and we will put together a proposal that fits your venue and your numbers.