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Elegant Wedding Cakes: Making Dreams Come True

Elegant wedding cakes are often seen in photographs and magazines taking pride of place at the center of a reception. You've probably seen wedding cake pictures that have given you mouthwatering ideas for your own party.

The trouble is, these fantastical designer creations often come at a high price. When you come to plan your own wedding, you learn that if you're not careful, the cake can turn out to be one of the most costly elements of the wedding itself. It's almost as though the cake were being treated as a piece of art, rather than food to be eaten!

So how are you to get the cake you dream of without going over your budget limit?

Making Elegant Cakes Affordable

Elaborate wedding cakes aren't expensive just because of the ingredients. It may also be because of the time and craftsmanship that went into decorating them. So a good way to cut your costs is to choose an elegant but simple design -- or to order a plain cake and decorate it yourself.

Here are some more creative cake ideas:

• Shop around and ask for recommendations from friends. You may get a better price from a less well-known, small bakery -- but it needs to be one you can trust.
• Elegant cakes can sometimes be had more cheaply when you order well in advance. If you go to a bakery only a few weeks prior to the wedding, don't be surprised if you have to pay more. So plan well ahead and ask for the best price available.
• Cut back on the details for a more sophisticated look. Do you really need all the decorative accents, sugar-coated ornaments and frills? See how much you can achieve by decorating the cake with fruit, flowers and ribbon.
• Don't forget that you can have a relatively small but decorative cake on display -- but serve your guests pieces of sheet cake from the same recipe that was cut up in the kitchen!

If you use your creativity, plus a few professional tips, it is possible to get an elegant cake at an affordable price. Do your comparison shopping, decide what you want and, if possible, collect some pictures of stylish wedding cakes that you've found along the way. You can refer to these as you plan your own.

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