Selecting Vendors: The Icing is the Cake

A cake is always a great dessert for a party and is nearly always a must for a wedding. There has recently been a trend towards more lavishly decorated cakes. Wedding coordinators often view the wedding cake as a focal point and feel they should be beautifully decorated. Hand-crafted chocolate flowers, ribbons, pearls, colorful gum-paste flowers, and pulled sugar are the latest in cake decoration. Bakers often carry a selection of figurines for cake tops.

Some bakers prefer to let the florist do live flower decoration; others decorate with flowers provided by the florist. Cake knives are generally not supplied by bakers but are available from caterers and possibly florists.

The cake table can be transformed into a "table-scape", created with specialty linen, lights, tulle, ribbons, bows, fruit, and flowers. For less elaborate decoration, bridesmaids' bouquets draped around the cake make for a simple, yet attractive table.

Recommendations:

• If you are planning to use live flower decoration, talk to your baker about how the flowers are placed on the cake.
• To alleviate concern about the presence of systemic insecticides, bakers will wrap the parts that come into contact with the cake. An alternative is to decorate with silk flowers.
• Check the serving size with the baker. If the cake's tiers vary in flavor, you might want to order a bit more of each as your guests may want to taste each one.

Money Matters:

• Cake prices vary quite a bit and depend mainly on the ingredients, the amount of work required for the decoration, and the flowers. Sometimes the decoration is included in the cake price, sometimes not, so check pricing carefully.
• Wedding cakes require delivery and setup fees which are most often charged separately.
• Multi-tiered and more complicated wedding cakes require support pieces, for which a deposit may be required.

To Save Money:

• Supplement a smaller decorated wedding cake with sheet cakes.
• Remember that children don't eat as much as you think.