Top 10 Wedding Cake Questions We Get Asked

Dreaming up and designing your wedding cake is (in our very unbiased opinion) one of the most fun parts of planning your wedding. It is fun to pull inspiration from your flowers, dress, tablescape, and other design elements and work with your baker to create a look that is unique to you and flows perfectly with the rest of the wedding design. That being said, there are lots of decisions that go into ordering a wedding cake, from the flavor and design to the size and delivery time. We have gathered the ten questions that we get asked most frequently to help guide you through the process of ordering your wedding cake (and we have included some fun design inspiration for you as well)!

What size cake should I order?

This is the first question that you should think about when ordering your wedding cake. The size of the cake depends mainly on your guest count and the design that you have in mind. A traditional wedding cake slice size is 1 inch X 1 inch X 2 inches, so you can get more servings out of your wedding cake than you might think. The servings per cake tier will vary depending on how many cake layers are in each tier, so it is important to touch base with your baker and ask them specifically how many people their cakes serve.

If you have always dreamed of having a large tiered cake at your wedding, we encourage you to go for it! If the cake size you order serves more people than are on your guest list, you can always serve larger cake slices or just enjoy any leftover cake after the wedding. Your baker may also offer a faux cake tier option, which is a great way to have the look of a tiered cake without ending up with lots of extra cake.

If you prefer the look of a smaller cutting cake, or are interested in having desserts other than cake, you can also order a smaller cake just for the bride and groom to cut, along with a dessert bar or sheet cakes to serve to your guests. Having a dessert bar is a great way to include desserts for guests who may not like cake (like cookies, bars, dessert shooters, or mini pies and tartes), and they can be arranged on a variety of stands and trays to create a fun display on your dessert table. If you want your guests to be able to eat cake with you, but do not like the look of a tiered cake, sheet cakes are a great option! Sheet cakes are typically less expensive than tiered cakes, so they are a great way to save on your budget. We suggest storing sheet cakes in the kitchen and cutting them there so that they do not clutter the dessert table.

What is your most popular cake flavor?

After the cake size is established, this is always the next question that we get asked. We are big proponents of choosing a cake flavor that you know you love because it is your day and you should be looking forward to cutting into your wedding cake! That being said, there are cake flavors that are ordered more than others. Traditional flavors like vanilla, chocolate, lemon, and almond are always some of the most requested flavors, and it is hard to go wrong with any of these! Some more unique flavors that are also frequently ordered are carrot cake, red velvet, lavender, and earl grey. We have another blog post that goes into detail on our most requested cake flavors and what fillings pair well with them, so feel free to check it out here if you are interested in learning more about popular cake flavors!

The most important thing to consider when choosing a cake flavor is your personal preference and what you know you will love, but there are some other things that you can think about too. It can be fun to think about the season in which you are getting married and pick a flavor that goes well with that season. For example, choosing a bright fruit flavor in the spring or summer months or a warmer spiced flavor like apple cider in the fall and winter months. If you are wanting a more unique flavor, it can also be fun to consider seasonal fruit flavors that might be available in the area in that your venue is located. Here is Montana, huckleberries and flathead cherries are local seasonal favorites in the summer months.

What does the booking process look like?

This is one of the very first questions that you should ask to make sure that you are familiar with the specific booking process for your baker. It is important to know at what point you are officially booked so that nothing gets lost in communication and you do not loose your date before your order is booked. Most bakers require some kind of deposit and a signed dessert contract to officially book your order and hold your wedding date in their calendar, so you will want to know what the deposit amount is and how the invoices and contract will be sent.

Our policy is to charge a non-refundable retainer of $200.00 (this is our most recent retainer amount as of 2024) and send a preliminary dessert contract when a client is ready to officially book their wedding date. Once the retainer has been paid and the preliminary contract is signed, the client is officially booked!

When should I book my cake tasting? 

If you want to schedule a cake tasting with your baker, this should be a question that you ask early on because dates get booked up fast, and not all bakers offer tastings year-round. For example, because of the number of weddings that we have booked in the spring and summer months, our bakery only offers cake tastings in the fall, winter, and early spring months. 

You should know some of the basics of your order before going into your tasting. Before the tasting, you should know what size cake you will be ordering, if you want to order any desserts besides the cake, and you should have some idea of what design you would like for the cake so that you can discuss the details in person. It is a good idea to look at your baker's website and Instagram to familiarize yourself with their work prior to meeting in person, and you should bring any inspiration pictures of cake designs that you like with you as a jumping off point for designing your cake.

How do I choose a wedding cake design?

Maybe you have had a picture in your head for years about what your wedding cake will look like, or maybe you have no idea where to even start. No matter where you are in choosing a design for your wedding cake, your baker is a great resource to utilize! An experienced baker can not only help you create the cake of your dreams, but they can also tell you what design elements will hold up well in the weather, depending on what season you get married in.

Inspiration for your cake design can come from anywhere! We suggest starting with the overall aesthetic you envision for your wedding. Is it modern, classic, bohemian, rustic, minimalist, maximalist, etc. Using this aesthetic, you can start searching for inspiration pictures on Instagram, Pinterest, and Google to get an idea of what designs you like. You can then pull specific design elements from anywhere else in the wedding to make your cake unique and really tie into the wedding design as a whole. This might be adding fresh flowers that match the wedding bouquet, giving the cake a lacy texture to match the wedding dress, or even pulling a fun texture or design from the place settings on the tables. The options are limitless, and we encourage you to be creative and design a cake that is completely you!

Is it worth it to hire a wedding planner?

This question does not specifically relate to wedding cakes, but it is such an important question that we wanted to include it in this post. We cannot overstate how valuable a planner is to the process of planning and designing your wedding. Finding a wedding planner who is local to the area in which you will be getting married will take away so much of the stress involved in getting married and will enable you to enjoy your wedding day and not worry over the details.

Most wedding planners offer different packages with varying levels of involvement. You might want them to take care of everything, including hiring all of your vendors (local planners typically have an amazing list of local vendors who are great to work with), giving input about the wedding design, and making a wedding timeline to coordinate all of the details the day of the wedding. You might prefer to be more involved and hire your vendors yourself, but let your planner coordinate delivery times and schedules so that you don't have to worry about it. Or, you might want to fully plan your wedding, but hire a day-of coordinator to make sure that vendors get where they need to go and to ensure that everything runs smoothly on the wedding day. Some vendors (like us!) book with wedding planners first when they start taking weddings for the season, so clients with planners are more likely to be able to book their wedding date than clients without planners. There are endless benefits to hiring a wedding planner, and we cannot stress enough how much we recommend hiring one!

When should my cake be delivered?

Setting the delivery time for your wedding cake can be a little bit tricky, depending on your venue and how warm the temperature is on the wedding day. Any frosting, no matter how stable it is, will start to soften and melt in temperatures higher than 75 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so it is important that your cake not be left in these warm temperatures for too long. If the cake is left in a warm area for too long, the design elements may get damaged and the whole cake may become unstable.

If you are having an indoor reception and your venue has air conditioning, the cake can be delivered and set up several hours before the wedding and it will be completely fine. If the cake will be displayed indoors but your venue does not have air conditioning, it would be better if the cake could be delivered within two hours of the reception starting. Lastly, if you plan to display the cake outdoors on a warm day, the cake may need to be delivered and stored in a refrigerator on site until it is time to cut it. Your baker may not offer services to stay and move the cake, so you would want to put someone (like your planner or day-of coordinator) in charge of making sure the cake gets moved to the dessert table before the cake cutting.

Can I make changes to my dessert contract after it is signed?

It is important to know if changes can be made to your dessert contract before you sign the first draft. This detail should be included in the contract, so you will want to make sure that you read the contract carefully or clarify this with your baker before signing anything. It is also important to know the last day that changes can be made to the contract so that you can keep that timeline in mind.

Most bakers will require that final changes be made before the final invoice is due. This is so that they can correctly charge you for the quantities of desserts ordered. Our policy is that changes can be made to the dessert contract up until three weeks before the wedding date, as that is when our final invoice is due.

When is my final invoice due?

This is an important question to ask all of your vendors so that you can add invoice dates to your calendar and make sure that everything gets paid on time. All bakers and other vendors have different policies about when payments are due, so clarifying this early in the booking process will make things less stressful down the line. If all or most of your vendors require final payment on the wedding day, it might be worth asking if you can get some of the invoices early so that you are not having to worry about getting everyone paid during the busyness of the wedding.

Our policy is that the final balance is due three weeks before the wedding date. This is because we order specific ingredients for each cake, and the vast majority of our work and time take place before the cake is delivered on the wedding day. This also keeps us from having to bother you for payment on your special day.

Where should I get my cake stand and other display items?

Many bakers (including us) will not provide a stand for the cake because there are many different styles and we want to make sure that the stand matches the rest of the wedding aesthetic. You will want to clarify with your baker if they will provide a stand for the cake, and if they will not, what size stand you should find. A good general rule is that the stand should be two inches wider in diameter than the bottom cake tier. For example, if the bottom tier of your cake is 10 inches in diameter, your stand should be a minimum of 12 inches in diameter.

If you find a stand that you love and want to purchase it, you can definitely do that! Etsy and even Amazon have a wide variety of styles and designs, and finding one that matches your wedding design can be fun. If you don't want to purchase a stand, many party equipment rental companies offer a selection of stands and trays that can be rented at a lower cost than purchasing. Here in Bozeman, Montana Party Rentals and Tailored and Tied both offer a great selection of stands to choose from.

We hope that this information is helpful for when you talk with your wedding baker. There are lots of details to think about, but ordering and designing  your wedding cake should be a fun experience that you can enjoy. Hopefully having this list of questions will simplify and clarify the process for you so that you can just look forward to cutting into a delicious cake on your wedding day!