Want to know the reasons why you or a close relative shouldn’t make your wedding cake?
And I made ours! I suppose I learnt the hard way. And that’s why I’m telling you this now.
It really depends on what kind of wedding and ultimately what kind of wedding cake you’re planning to have…
Will it be a DIY wedding?
Our wedding day was a pretty laid back kind of thing. We are quite laid back people and I also had no idea how the wedding industry worked back then (4 years ago already!) I took it upon myself to make EVERYTING for the wedding. I made the invitations, decorations, designed a colouring in corner, the menus and took it upon myself to make not one, but a selection of four wedding cakes, some big some small!
We didn’t really go for many traditions on our big day either. We got married late in the afternoon so we could have an evening party, which is the bit we really wanted anyway. We had a tiny ceremony with a few friend and family, and our reception was at The Sterling in The Gherkin. The venue is super modern, so I took it upon myself to get to the venue on the morning of the wedding and rope in some friends to help me decorate it.
Is your budget really that tight?
We also got married on a super tight budget, because to us, a wedding shouldn’t be so expensive that you cant afford to eat anything but beans and have no holidays for the foreseeable because you’re paying it off. And that is honestly one of the main reasons I decided to make our wedding cake.
I got on a mission to teach myself as much as possible about making cakes professionally and when he saw there was no stopping me, my now husband, Daniel, booked me on to a wedding cake class at Fair cake where I stacked my first cake. I was hooked and have been since.
But the idea isn’t to sell you the idea of making your own wedding cake!. I actually want to persuade you not to and my reasons come from personal experience…
Ok, so here are my 5 reasons why you shouldn’t make your own wedding cake, or get one of your relatives to do it…
1. You’ll have visitors in town…
Firstly, what do you plan to do in the week leading up to your wedding? Will you be working? Will you be taking a week off to prepare yourself and more importantly, who will be around to spend that time with? I met my future mother in Law for the first time three days before our wedding! Daniel is from Brazil and I hadn’t met any of his family in person yet, only on skype. My mother in Law arrived, other relatives arrived and I couldn’t spend any time with them because I was making our wedding cake!Have you ever tried to deliver a wedding cake before?
Wedding cakes don’t deliver themselves (although they should in my opinion!) If you’ve never delivered a wedding cake before, it can be nerve-racking. And as you probably aren’t going to deliver it yourself, you’ll have to rely on a poor friend or uncle to save the day with delivering it and making sure it’s all set up in the venue. It will of course, be fine, but I think it’s best left to a professional and then you don’t even need to think about it and can be sipping prosecco whilst being pampered, as you should be! Not watching out for every speed bump and pothole in the road yourself, or praying that the cake has made it to the venue in one piece knowing how bad Uncle Paul’s driving is!
This cake alone took three days leading up to our wedding to make. Not to mention the rest of the dessert table!
You’ll have a super strict deadline
As with anything creative, making a cake can tend to take longer than you think it will. Your deadline will be looming and is obviously non-moveable! You’ll need to practice and work out how long it will take you to make a wedding cake to serve all your guests and it could take you the whole week! Your deadline will be looming all week and you’l no doubt feel the pressure. It’s also quite physically knackering making a wedding cake. Especially if something doesn’t go according to plan and you have to stay up late to try and get it finished!It might make your pre-wedding week even more stressful
Are you even just a little bit of a stresshead? As you have thought about the looming deadline, what else could go wrong? Well, if you haven’t stacked a cake before or haven’t practiced making the cake you might be up all night the night before trying to make your wedding cake into what you visulaised. It takes a lot of practice and skill to make a wedding cake look professional and to make it stand up straight. Trust me, I’ve been through all that! So if you see yourself getting all stress when really you should be chilling before your big day, don’t do it!Criticism
Cake makers, and I think, any creative are always over critical of their own work. In my cakes, I see the imperfections, the bits that I don’t think were supposed to be as they are and I also know how it was supposed to look in my head before I made it. You’ll be overly critical of your work for years to come as it’ll be in your photo albums forever!So, those are my reasons. I would genuinely recommend that you pay someone else to make your cake for you. I’d also recommend you do this with a lot of the other aspects of your wedding. If you asked your sister who’s a photographer to do the wedding photos, she would miss out on the day, and not be in the photos.
There are lots of things to think about and I do think that weddings can be expensive. They don’t have to be. I think unless you’re in the wedding industry, find a cake maker that has the same taste as you. If you’re into modern interiors, find a cake maker who can make you a super modern cake. If you want something simple and delicious looking, find someone whose cakes are mainly buttercream and all about flavours. There are lots of options out there and your bound to find a professional who can help you.
If you’re into modern styling and having an urban wedding, get in touch and find out what I can offer you for your bespoke wedding cake.
K xx
