How much do wedding cakes cost in Ireland? Well, obviously it depends on what kind of cake you're looking for: what size? what finish? It also depends on who you ask. Different bakeries and vendors with different levels of quality and artistic vision might vary their pricing greatly.
The average Irish wedding cake
The average price for a wedding cake is €340 in Ireland, according to a 2015 wedding survey conducted by Mrs2Be. But let's try top break down the pricing options into tiers, and define some of the factors that go into budgeting a wedding cake.
Prices by size (cake tiers)
The main thing to consider is how many people your cake is supposed to serve. A small 2 Tier fondant cake will usually start at around €300 and serve around 30 people. That's €10 per person to consider for your wedding budget just for cake.
Don't panic if you are having a lot of guests, as this price isn't a constant; it will drop the larger your wedding guest list is. Using the same example, a large 3 Tier fondant cake that serves 120 will probably cost around €550, dropping your per-person price to half... just €4.5
For instance, this handy wedding cake price chart from The Wedding Cake Boutique shows their prices and how many people can be served.
Prices by cake decoration
The same approach, which we could call Law of Diminishing Wedding Cake Price per Person (or LDWCPPP for short) is applied by other bakers like Victoria's Heavenly Cupcakes from Co. Meath, with prices varying depending on decoration. The three typical decorations used on Irish wedding cakes are:
- Naked cakes
- Buttercream frosting / icing
- Fondant
This is their wedding cake price chart for each decoration style as of July, 2017:
Budget options
If you're trying to save some money and wouldn't mind getting a cake that's a bit "generic" in terms of design and decoration, you could always turn to budget options like store-bought wedding cakes. Supervalu, for example, has a selection of affordable cheesecakes starting just at €90. Other companies offer entire categories focused on saving you some money on your wedding day, such as The Cake Creator with their so-called "recession wedding cakes" catalog.
