Wedding dress - check
Location - check
Now you're getting into the swing of wedding planning next on your list is a caterer, while you have food on the brain, throw in the cake vendor search into the mix.
Caterers are tricky. Not in and of themselves, but as a collective, they're a hard bunch to figure out. They'll quote you $25 per plate of food, sounds great right? Well, that's because they haven't mentioned the $15 per hour charge for the wait staff, $20/hour for the bartender, $200/hour for the chef, $150/hr for the assistant chef$, 0.50 per person for flatware, $1.25 per place setting and napkins and table linens to be determined by fabric choice, and let us not forget the 17% gratuity. Huh? How about you add it all up and give it to me as one nice round number? Like $75 per plate out the door?
If you can find a mom and pop restaurant where they own their restaurant outright (if they don't have overhead they won't pass that cost on to you will they?), you're liable to get a much better deal than a "wedding caterer" will give you. Their cost to you may be as little as buying out their restaurant for the evening since they have to shut down for your event. If we approximate this at $2000, at 100 guests, its $20 pp. They will have place settings/flatware/napkins/linens/waiters etc all included. All you have to do is tip them. I hunted one up in Los Angeles for $16 pp all inclusive. People still tall me how great the food at my wedding was.
Any place that terms itself as specializing in wedding "insert item here" will invariably be more expensive than its every day counterpart. Go to a regular bakery, they bake cake too, and I even bet they have white or ivory icing for the cake. The concept of a specialized wedding cake bakery frightens me. Only because this is where you'll suddenly find yourself paying $700 for cake.
Find your favorite bakery, or your best friends favorite bakery, or everyone's favorite bakery on www.yelp.com. Price them out, visit them and taste a few cakes, then get into the little details. The kind of icing, the design, the tiers etc. If you live in Los Angeles, you've heard of Porto's Bakery ( www.partosbakery.com. They are so ridiculously cheap you wonder how they profit, until you walk into the shop and wait half an hour in line, then you realise, its quantity not cost. Another great hidden gem is King's Hawaiian Bakery in Torrance, CA. This bakery does a mean wedding cake, for more than a reasonable price. I've seen pictures of their cakes.......trust me you want some :)
King's Hawaiian Bakery 2808 Sepulveda Blvd Torrance, CA 90505
Reasonable bakeries are everywhere. Just do your research.
Some of you (and I say you because I cannot bake my way out of a bag) are gifted enough to be able to bake. You bake quite well actually, if I do say so myself, so why not bake your own wedding cake? Get your best girlfriends together and have a fun cake bake one saturday afternoon. Buy a book on how to ice a cake and have fun with it.
Thanks to France for the King's Hawaiian heads up!
Location - check
Now you're getting into the swing of wedding planning next on your list is a caterer, while you have food on the brain, throw in the cake vendor search into the mix.
Caterers are tricky. Not in and of themselves, but as a collective, they're a hard bunch to figure out. They'll quote you $25 per plate of food, sounds great right? Well, that's because they haven't mentioned the $15 per hour charge for the wait staff, $20/hour for the bartender, $200/hour for the chef, $150/hr for the assistant chef$, 0.50 per person for flatware, $1.25 per place setting and napkins and table linens to be determined by fabric choice, and let us not forget the 17% gratuity. Huh? How about you add it all up and give it to me as one nice round number? Like $75 per plate out the door?
If you can find a mom and pop restaurant where they own their restaurant outright (if they don't have overhead they won't pass that cost on to you will they?), you're liable to get a much better deal than a "wedding caterer" will give you. Their cost to you may be as little as buying out their restaurant for the evening since they have to shut down for your event. If we approximate this at $2000, at 100 guests, its $20 pp. They will have place settings/flatware/napkins/linens/waiters etc all included. All you have to do is tip them. I hunted one up in Los Angeles for $16 pp all inclusive. People still tall me how great the food at my wedding was.
Any place that terms itself as specializing in wedding "insert item here" will invariably be more expensive than its every day counterpart. Go to a regular bakery, they bake cake too, and I even bet they have white or ivory icing for the cake. The concept of a specialized wedding cake bakery frightens me. Only because this is where you'll suddenly find yourself paying $700 for cake.
Find your favorite bakery, or your best friends favorite bakery, or everyone's favorite bakery on www.yelp.com. Price them out, visit them and taste a few cakes, then get into the little details. The kind of icing, the design, the tiers etc. If you live in Los Angeles, you've heard of Porto's Bakery ( www.partosbakery.com. They are so ridiculously cheap you wonder how they profit, until you walk into the shop and wait half an hour in line, then you realise, its quantity not cost. Another great hidden gem is King's Hawaiian Bakery in Torrance, CA. This bakery does a mean wedding cake, for more than a reasonable price. I've seen pictures of their cakes.......trust me you want some :)
King's Hawaiian Bakery 2808 Sepulveda Blvd Torrance, CA 90505
Reasonable bakeries are everywhere. Just do your research.
Some of you (and I say you because I cannot bake my way out of a bag) are gifted enough to be able to bake. You bake quite well actually, if I do say so myself, so why not bake your own wedding cake? Get your best girlfriends together and have a fun cake bake one saturday afternoon. Buy a book on how to ice a cake and have fun with it.
Thanks to France for the King's Hawaiian heads up!
2 comments:
I was wondering what is the name of the restaurant where you paid $16 a plate?
La Grotta Di Capri, Pasadena, CA
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