Booking your wedding cake vendor...

I recommend doing a few tastings at multiple bakeries to get an idea of which ones you're most interested in. Once you've narrowed down the options, talk with them about what you envision for your cake design, pricing/deposits, availability for your date, details, etc. From there, pick the option that works best for you and your fiance. Some bakers will apply the cost of your tasting to your total bill if you choose them, others will not. Typically, there is a deposit required for them to hold your date. My fiance and I booked our cake baker three months before our original wedding date, though I recommend booking a little sooner than that (any time between now and 6 months in advance should be fine) just to make sure you get the one you want.

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Thank you! I really appreciate it. I agree- I was thinking that because a lot of wedding postponements from last year, there is lack of availability. I guess at this point it is never too early to book any vendor due to the demand.

We booked ours a full year in advance. We booked after the tasting and paid a percentage upfront as the down-payment. The cost of the tasting was actually refunded to us since we booked him

We're planning on reaching out to cake bakers within the next month! Our wedding is also in Jan. 2022!

We will pribably order ours with 30 days of our reception from a bakery. Nothing super fancy though

My FH is a chef and very picky so we did 4-5 tastings before finding a cake that we loved. We ended up booking around 7 months before our wedding. At that point we had to pay a percentage upfront as a deposit (got a discount for paying the full amount upfront). We wanted a relatively simple cake design, but if you're looking for something more intricate, make sure they can do what you're looking for before purchasing. One thing that surprised me was the cost of tastings! While they do give you your money's worth as far as quantity, I wasn't expecting to pay $50+ per tasting.

View Quoted Comment Yay! Congratulations! I think I will as well. We will be in the wedding venue area in March anyway might as well get that covered while in town. Thank you!

We either went to tastings or got take-home boxes from three different bakeries before deciding on one, two of which were free and the last (the one we booked) was $25, but that fee is subtracted from our order total (would've just been a loss if we didn't book with them). Once we decided on them, we had a call to discuss our vision, quantity, flavors, etc. and paid their deposit to hold our date, which was 7 months from booking. The rest is due three weeks before, and we can adjust the quantity before paying - we're doing a small 2-tier and sheet cakes, so we'll increase or decrease the sheet cake sizes based on the number of RSVPs we receive!

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Thanks! Congrats to you as well!! I think that's a great idea!

Book everything as early as possible.

I found when i was planking and getting it together alot of vendors were filling up because of all the rescheduled weddings from last year.

My own venue- i wanted to get married on October but they only had 2 dates available for 2021... April and December, so we went with April.

Michelle,


We just booked our bakery and our wedding is in October! It was similar to other vendor bookings where we sent them information on our wedding and vision, then had a consultation (which was in person rather than on the phone for tasting purposes!). We had tastings with a few bakeries, where we went in and tasted six different flavors of cupcakes with icings. The baker talked with us about our wedding details (guest count, times) and about the specifics of the flavors we tried (flavors we liked, designs, and pricing of them). One bakery let us select six flavors to choose and another gave us the "most popular" flavors to test. Overall it took about 30-45 mins per bakery. It was honestly one of the easiest and most fun vendor hunts we've had! I would suggest gathering some inspiration pics of what you want your cake/cupcakes/desserts to look like/designs and budget. It might also be helpful to ask the bakery for a list of options to try, so you can see what they have to offer and decide what you specifically want to taste test. Finally, do not do multiple tastings in one afternoon.. this is what we did and wanted to throw up after due to sugar overload!!😛
I would recommend looking for a caterer, hair stylists and make up artists, since they can only usually do one event a day, unlike a bakery!

It really depends on the particular vendor. I sampled cake from about 5-6 different bakers and some required deposits upfront, some required you to pay for the tasting, others simply requested a deposit closer to the date if you wanted to go ahead.

Cake vendors tend to be more relaxed than other vendors (i.e. photographer) and some do not necessarily book you in as early as others will. Personally, I have very high standards with cake (I don’t want my guests to have the usual dreaded dry/bland wedding cake) so I started tastings about 8 months out to ensure I had time to find someone I loved and that they had availability on our day as I wasn’t prepared to lose out on a good baker.

I suggest you book your wedding cake no more than 7 months away from your wedding

I booked everyone immediately so I could have who I wanted. For cake we paid $30 tasting fee. Once we chose our flavors and design we paid 100% of the cost right then. Our three tier cake is bourbon flavored cake with caramel and bacon filling. Iced with Swiss meringue.

View Quoted Comment You had me at bourbon flavored 🤤

View Quoted Comment Thank you!

View Quoted Comment I can only imagine the sugar rush you had!! Lol thank you so much! We are doing cupcakes as well with one tier just so we can save it for our first anniversary. Thank you for the advice!

View Quoted Comment I agree ugh dry wedding cake is the worst. Thanks for the advice

My cake vendor was a part of my package when I booked by venue. I just made an appointment for my food tasting with my venue and my cake tasting with the bakery. My wedding is in April, 2021. It depends on when you want to do your cake tasting and book the vendor. Good Luck.

View Quoted Comment Thank you!