Wedding Cake Alternatives
The cake is one of the few wedding costs you can remove without anyone feeling short-changed. Ask a few people on your guest list what they remember from the last wedding they attended. The cake ceremony rarely comes up.
Do you need a wedding cake at all?
The formal cutting is one of the easiest traditions to drop, and dropping it removes a cost and a slot in the reception timeline at the same time. If nobody in either family is attached to it, that is the simplest version of this decision. If someone is, the next option keeps the cake without paying twice.
Serve the cake as dessert instead of both
Most couples pay for a tiered cake and then a plated dessert, which means paying twice for the same course. Serving the cake as dessert is where the saving sits. Tiered cakes are priced per slice with a design fee on top, and a good part of the cake gets cut, boxed, and never eaten, so you are paying per slice for slices nobody has.
Dessert bars and other alternatives
A dessert bar or a handful of specialty items usually costs less than a tiered cake and feeds more people. It also gets guests out of their seats at a point in the evening where that helps. If you want the photograph of a cake being cut, a small single-tier cake alongside a dessert bar does that job for a fraction of the per-slice price.
Key Takeaways
- The cake cutting is one of the easiest traditions to drop entirely
- If you keep the cake, serve it as dessert rather than paying for both courses
- Tiered cakes are priced per slice plus a design fee, and much of it goes uneaten
- A dessert bar is the wedding cake alternative that usually costs less and feeds more
- A small single-tier cake still gets you the cutting photograph
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Source: Vogue