One of the focal points of any wedding reception is the wedding cake.

Before you decide on which vendor you are going to use, there are a number of questions that a bride to be should have answered in order to make an informed decision regarding which cake designer will get her business.

Here is a short list of questions to ask any vendor before making your decision.

• Does the vendor have a portfolio of wedding cakes which can be viewed, either online or can a copy be sent in the post?
• Are there a number of set designs with set prices or is each cake bespoke?
• Does the vendor offer tasting appointments so that you can ‘try before you buy’?
• Is it possible to hire extra items such as stands, tiers, cutters and cake toppers? If they have to be purchased make sure that the cost of each item is clarified.
• Remember, the fresher your wedding cake is, the better it is likely to taste, so be sure to ask how far in advance will the cake be made before the day of the wedding.
• If additional cakes are required find out if these will be charged per slice, and if they will be delivered pre-wrapped and at what cost.
• Will your wedding cake be delivered (and at what if any additional cost?) or will you have to collect it, and if so, when? Bear in mind if you cannot collect or have it delivered on your wedding day, you will need somewhere to store it.

A dedicated cake maker from Scotland recently embarked on round trip totalling more than 2,000 miles in order to provide a wedding cake for a rich Scottish business man.

Paul Bradford of Truly Scrumptious based in Linlithgow, Lothian’s hopped on a plane and jetted off to the town of Monte Carlo in Monaco to make a cake for the business man who claimed that he was unable to find the right fruit cake for his 12 tiered wedding cake.

The un-named Scottish tycoon footed the bill, inclusive of travel costs, which totalled thousands of pounds to ensure that he had the perfect cake for his big day.

When he arrived in Monaco, Paul worked tirelessly in the kitchens of globally renowned hotel, Hotel de Paris, and spent more than 3 days creating the wedding cake from ingredients which were flown in from his native Scotland.

He commented: -

“France may be the best known gastronomic country in the world but the couple could not get the fruit cake they wanted there so we were called in.

It was by far the most expensive cake we’ve ever made.”

Truly Scrumptious is still providing in excess of 90 cakes for weddings and special occasion despite the current credit crunch.