Weddingbee boards

Hello everyone,

Well, I'm brand new to the site, so first let me say hello!  I love to see such an active message board system here.  Everyone really seems to support one another giving off a really good vibe!

So here's the deal.  What I need help with is finding affordable cake options in my area.  See, when I originally budgeted (and what a tight budget it was), I made some serious errors.  I think I budgeted too early before properly investigating vendor pricing in this area, and I also think that I budgeted incorrectly by basing my estimates on the lowest possible figure rather than the average figure (this obviously boxed me into having almost no options in many cases). I also partially blame the bakeries though - why is it so hard to put a simple price on your website?  Just write one sentence: "Our wedding cake prices start at __ per slice."  But for some reason most of them want to hide the ball on us.  All of this has put me in a difficult position of ending up way overbudget.  We had to rebudget for the last purchases we have left (florist, cake, invitations, favors, rentals) and now I feel like I have to settle for the cheapest I can find of each rather than actually picking things I even remotely like or that match my color scheme (Tiffany blue and chocolate, if anyone is curious). 

For example, I guestimated $500 for a wedding cake to feed 100 people.  From what I understand, normally that's not so unreasonable.  I thought I was choosing a generous figure that would allow me to get a really nice cake.  Boy was I in for a rude awakening.  As I began to research bakeries, actually calling them to get that ever-elusive price, I came to the cold realization that this amount is not going to cut it.  No dream cake for me.  In fact, I've discovered that many bakeries START at $6/slice - already way over my budget especially when you factor in the dreaded tax that I've read many of us forget about when we budget (yeah that's another mistake I made). 

So at this point, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to be able to design my dream cake and take it to the best baker in town.  I've resigned myself to basically just finding someone who will make any cake that I can afford.  It's so depressing, especially since after the dress, the cake is the most important thing to me (did anyone see that recent My Fair Weddings episode where David Tutera asked that bride with all the lists - "What are the two most important factors for you in your wedding?"). 

So I'm putting the question out there - hopefully there might be some readers out there who are also from my area who can help me.  Does anyone know of any good bakeries around here who will make a good quality cake for under $6 a slice?  I live and am getting married in the Tri-Valley area, so anything close by would be most helpful, but at this point I'm so desperate that I'd be willing to look into Berkeley, Oakland, Concord, or Fremont bakeries, as long as their delivery charge didn't put me back over budget again.

Really sad about her cake,

Ptownbride

I am not sure of their exact per slice prices but we are using Danville Bakery,  they are amazing and ridiculously helpful and want to do whatever they can to make you happy and please you. :) 

I definitely recommend giving them a call at least.

A friend who recently got married, got her cake at The Taste of Denmark formerly Neldums bakery in Oakland.  She said it was under $2 a slice.  I had the cake at her wedding at it was pretty good.  I will most likely get my cake there also.

Thanks for everyone's input.  Just as an update, and a tip for anyone else in the same situation...  I have been on four tastings so far, and found City of D'Lights (soon to be renamed Cafe Atilla) in San Ramon to have delicious cake, excellent skills, and extremely reasonable prices.  Lynne, who is one of the owners, gave me a price quote of right around $500 (excluding a $50 delivery charge) for a 12" 3 tiered fondant covered cake plus sheet cake, with embossed fondant, decorative pearls, ribbon, and a custom monogram.  She was very sweet and really knows her stuff.  Other bakeries I've been to either have delicious cake with a sky high price tag, or a cheaper price with okay cake and too simple decor skills.  I have two more tastings to go but my fiance and I both think we'll probably end up going with City of D'Lights.