6 Reasons Why Home Bakeries Should NOT Bake Wedding Cakes

by Aurelia Lambrechts | Home Baking Biz Tips

6 Reasons Why Home Bakeries Should NOT Bake Wedding Cakes

Did I hit a nerve with this post title?

Honestly, if some blogger told me 4 years ago that I should NOT be baking wedding cakes, I would have slapped them.

I completely understand this because, more often than not, wedding cakes are the MAIN source of income for bakers, right? So HOW will your baking business survive if you don’t bake wedding cakes?!

Maybe wedding cakes have been YOUR Home Bakery’s main source of income up until now…

The idea of being a full-time baker and never baking wedding cakes IS quite absurd to most home bakers. Probably because clients pay hundreds (and sometimes thousands) for wedding cakes. Who DOESN’T want a piece of that action?!

Wedding cakes are typically quite huge, need to feed lots of people and require extensive decor which you can charge extra for – so what’s NOT to love?

I did bake wedding cakes (among other things) during the first 3 years I baked from home.

Although I was stressing my face off, they did work out and every client was happy!

But over time I’ve realized that although the wedding cake scene might be exciting and prestigious, it is (shockingly) NOT the most practical or profitable source of income for a home baking business.

And after reading this post you’ll understand WHY.

I know this is completely going against everything you’ve SEEN in the baking world. It’s hard to even THINK about considering an alternative approach than wedding cakes.

But if you’ve regularly been worrying about where your next customer is going to come from, this post is totally going to help you understand WHY you’re struggling to get consistent clients.

So please read this with an open mind. You owe it to yourself to at least check this out if your current Home Bakery approach hasn’t been getting you consistent sales.

This post is here to HELP you reach success in your Home Bakery business!

Here are the 6 Reasons why Home Bakeries should NOT bake wedding cakes.

1. Weddings Are ONCE Off, Not Ongoing

When I first considered baking part time, I had a short interview with an acquaintance of mine to learn more about the whole home baking scene.

I’d been to multiple weddings that she’d baked for.

She bakes SUPER delicious cakes…

Her baking is honestly some of the most delicious baking I’ve EVER had. My mouth is watering just thinking about the flavours and textures of her bakes!

And on top of that she’s phenomenally creative! Her cakes and cupcakes are works of ART. Every design is totally unique and leaves everyone in awe.

Here’s the thing though; over her 6 years of baking, she’s only really baked for weddings. And in all that time she hasn’t been able LEAVE her day job and bake full time.

Despite her talent, despite her 6 years of HARD work, despite her TOP NOTCH QUALITY products and great reputation… She still hasn’t been able to make enough money to even bake PART time – never mind FULL time!

Her baking is definitely not the problem.

It’s her NICHE that’s the problem. (A niche means that you specialize in solving a very specific problem for a specific type of customer).

👉 Follow this link to join my Free Resource Library and get the >> FREE GUIDE: How to Find the Perfect Niche for Your Home Bakery.

I’ve found that people who order wedding cakes are unfortunately ONCE off buyers 98% of the time. And they know it! They know they’re only ordering for their wedding and will never order from you again.

They’re not the home-baked-goods type of people. They’re just getting a cake for the tradition and novelty of it.

These couples buy a cake from you once and then you’ll never see them again.

No matter how delicious and beautiful your cake was – 98% of the time you just won’t hear from them again. Remember that they are not actually your ideal clients. Your ideal clients are people who are regular cake buyers.

And even if the wedding couple are regular-baked-goods-buyers, they will probably label you as their “wedding cake baker” and not their “weekly baker”.

For a Home Bakery to be successful you need CONSISTENT, super regular business and the wedding cake niche cannot provide that for you.

Your baked goods probably aren’t the reason you’ve been struggling to get a consistent income.

🌟 Your NICHE determines the consistency of your sales.

On the other hand; investing your energy and care in baking for handpicked restaurants, coffee shops, delis and direct loyal clients is super sustainable.

They guarantee consistent, long term business and will keep your home bakery operating FULL TIME for as long as YOU choose! It’s AWESOME!

2. Super High Stakes

Wedding cakes are usually quite colossal, right?

I remember I only wanted to stick to baking cupcakes when I first started my home bakery. Mostly because the thought of dropping a regular 8-inch cake was already too stressful for me to handle!

Eventually I was able to gather some courage and started baking 9-inch cakes. These cakes are now the financial backbone of my home bakery and I’m very grateful that I haven’t dropped one yet!

But with wedding cakes there is SO MUCH at stake if something goes wrong!

Do you remember that episode in Cake Boss where they made a cake for this girl called Lexi? Due to some poor communication between 2 of the guys, they accidentally dropped the ginormous 4 tier cake down the stairs… 😱

This cake had taken the team DAYS to bake and now they were forced to recreate it in just 1 and a half hours!! NO THANKS!!

Fortunately, they are a huge bakery and always have extra sponge cake on standby, so they could make it happen.

But in our Home Bakeries we don’t have the time, money or physical space to always have extra cake lying around for “in case” we drop a cake!

Home bakers also typically work alone. This means we definitely don’t have a team of 6 bakers and decorators who can all jump in and make a cake happen in 1 and a half hours.

And always remember that wedding dates and times are SET IN STONE. This means you can’t ask the client for even a tiny extension.

So, in a nutshell: With wedding cakes the stakes (and therefor the stress) is SO MUCH HIGHER and if something goes wrong, it WILL be the end of the world.

3. Brides Can Be… Challenging

Dear oh dear… Business in and of itself is already challenging. Doing business with a stressed, tired, high-strung bride is seriously not for everyone.

Yes, you charge them for their cake and the time it will take you to create it.

But what you WON’T be charging for is the HOURS of texting back and forth that she should not worry. “YES (for the fifth time) the cake will turn out just fine and yes I did take notes (detailed, to the letter) of all the details you want.”

No matter how clearly and sincerely you explain that you’ve got it under control, they WILL text you again in 2 weeks to chat through all the same things – again.

They are just tired and stressed out. Unfortunately you might need to be at the receiving end of that a few times with a lot of grace and patience… and free time you’re not being paid for.

I’ve personally dealt with a bride that kept phoning and texting for the entire 6 months leading up to their wedding. All in all, the extra communication took about 4 HOURS. I didn’t get to charge a penny for all that time and effort – and neither will you.

And when you don’t get paid for all those work hours you end up making a loss.

4. Always More Money & More Time

Wedding Cakes are often like… very large building projects (Forgive my architecture half for kicking in).

My husband and I have been talking quite extensively about his architecture office. They have these super rich clients that often use the architectural services of my husband’s office.

Because their project is so vast, it’s difficult to take account of absolutely every little detail and cost right at the very beginning when payment is calculated and made.

The clients also keep changing their minds every week about what they want – even after building materials have been ordered!

This results in unforeseen extra work and costs which the clients never end up paying for.

The architecture company always ends up absorbing all the extra costs. They do it because they want the high paying client to be happy. They also don’t want to get a bad reputation for “not caring” or putting out a sub-standard building.

Brides are exactly the same.

ALL brides (myself included) expect everything to be PERFECT for their once-in-a-lifetime event. They want the entire day to match the ideal they’ve been dreaming of for decades.

So, it often happens that they see a new detail (after they’ve paid for a different cake) on Instagram or Pinterest or Instagram that they now want to add to their cake.

This means that there will always be extra things the bride wants to add or remove from the cake – often last minute when it’s too late or trivial to charge for it.

The “magic of a wedding day” can become this cause that will manipulate you into going above and beyond what was agreed upon and not getting paid extra for it.

5. Constant Search for NEW Clients

The general intention is to only get married once. One marriage, one wedding, one client couple, one order, ONE cake. Even if the cake is huge, it is ultimately still only ONE cake.

As I mentioned earlier, wedding cake couples will unfortunately label you as their “wedding cake baker” and not their “weekly baker”. This means they will order from you once for their wedding and then never again.

If your home bakery relies on wedding cakes, you will need to spend SO much time, energy and money to find and reel in more ONCE OFF wedding cake clients.

If you live in a large city where loads of young people keep pouring in, getting new wedding cake clients will be less difficult, but if you live in a small town – forget it!

But even if you’re in a large city, you’ll NEVER be able to compete with the large, popular bakeries. They’ve got an advertising budget that’s literally 100 times what you’ve got.

They’ve got the resources and reputation to intercept all the new brides and to keep you invisible. You just can’t swim with these large sharks in the tiny wedding cake pond.

This whole process is super tiresome and unsustainable.

I’d much rather invest my limited resources and energy into securing sources that get me CONSISTENT orders on repeat – like building up a LOYAL client base and/or baking restaurants & coffee shops.

With the right strategies you can create a stable income for your Home Bakery WITHOUT ever paying a cent for advertising!

I NEVER pay for advertising – and yet my home bakery has been fully booked since 2015.

If you want my strategies for creating a Home Bakery with consistent orders and a stable income then my FREE Masterclass is perfect for you 👉 Register here!

6. Creative Restriction

Brides always have a VERY SPECIFIC idea of what they want their cake to look like. Let’s just say they’re MORE than ready to show you their Pinterest Board for wedding cakes.

Wedding cakes are, for the most part, super prescriptive. Meaning, the BRIDES decide what you’re baking and you’ve got no say in it.

Although it does help when a client provides you some direction with a design, they’ll unfortunately (probably) not ask you to use your own intuition or creativity.

If you’re well known for your wedding cakes and are labelled as a unique wedding cake artist, then they might consider your opinion. But still, probably not.

All bakers are generally creative people and this restriction can lead to mounds of frustration & exhaustion from constraining yourself. It can even result some conflict with the bride when you take the “risk” of having a different idea to hers.

And if the bride is a friend or family member it can become very difficult to protect the relationship.

Collectively, these 6 reasons have been MORE THAN ENOUGH to convince me to stop baking wedding cakes for ever. And I hope they’ve given you some perspective too!

I’m less stressed, happier, my business is WAY MORE successful and I have more creative freedom.

It’s worked brilliantly to rather DEFINE MY OWN NICHE. My niche isn’t dominated by large, prestigious bakeries. Finding my own niche is how I was able to start a FULL TIME Home Bakery Business. And YOU can do it too!