Wedding cake is the strangest item on any wedding budget. It is photographed more than almost anything else on the day, and in a lot of cases half the room never actually eats a slice — it gets cut during speeches, boxed up, and finished by the cleanup crew on Sunday.
If you are looking at wedding cakes in Christchurch, the useful first question is not "what should it look like" but "is anyone going to eat it, and when".
What we do, stated plainly
We make four-layer cakes from $95, in ten flavours, finished with ganache and chocolate elements. We do not use fondant or colourings, and we do not create custom decorations — you choose from the finishes you can already see on our cakes.
That will rule us out for some couples, and it should. What it buys everyone else is a cake that has been made hundreds of times and comes out right, at the same price we charge any other customer — there is no bespoke consultation fee, because there is no bespoke consultation.
The ten flavours
Tres Leches, Thunder Chocolate, Nutella, Dulce Caramel, Lemonade, Flat White Coffee, Black Forest, Prestige Coconut, Snow White and Tropical Coconut.
The Snow White is the most wedding-appropriate thing we make and photographs cleanly. Tres Leches is the safest across a mixed guest list, and its three-milk soak means it survives a long reception better than buttercream does. The Black Forest is alcohol-free, which quietly solves several problems at once.
Sizes, and how many they really feed
- 15cm — 12 to 15 servings
- 20cm — 20 to 25 servings
- 25cm — 30 to 35 servings
Larger than most couples assume, so count before you commit to tiers.
The delivery question, answered now
Most couples assume a wedding cake arrives by van. Ours does not. We are collection only — you or someone in your party picks it up from The Welder — and we would rather say that on this page than three weeks into your planning.
Here is why it is less of a problem than it sounds. Your cake is handed over already assembled, in a box, with the top cut open if it is tiered. We recommend collecting the day before, and it will sit in a fridge overnight in our own packaging with no change to taste or texture. So this is not a wedding-morning job with a stopwatch — it is an errand for whoever in the party is calm and has a car, done the day before while everything else is still simple.
The dessert-table alternative
Increasingly couples skip the single tiered cake and put out a spread instead. It photographs just as well and everyone gets something they like.
Petit fours are made for this — a tray of fifteen pieces, and we suggest three to five pieces per guest. The entire range is made with no added gluten, which removes a whole conversation with your caterer. They need seven days' notice. Mini desserts are one serving each, and mini cakes come individually or in trays of six and twelve.
Do not forget the savoury half
Our artisan savouries — the three no-added-gluten quiches, sfiha, sausage scrolls — can be supplied fresh or frozen for heating on site, which is the detail most venues will thank you for.
Favours
Small individual items — brigadeiro, honey cake, brownie bites, bon-bons. Our gift boxes work for the wedding party.
A dietary note worth having early
A note on wording: New Zealand labelling rules mean we say "no added gluten" rather than "gluten free". Our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur and nothing is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease.
Plenty of our range is made with no added gluten, and three of our bundt and loaf cakes — the Brazilian Carrot, the Apple Crumble and the Pineapple Coconut — can be ordered with a No Added Dairy preference at checkout. On the Pineapple Coconut that preference is a different build of the cake, since the standard one is topped with a rich tres leches. Nothing we make is both made with no added gluten and made with no added dairy at once, which is worth knowing before you build a guest list around it.
Taste it first
You can sample flavours at the patisserie — buy a few slices and settle the argument properly. We are open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm on Saturday.
Then order online, or use the enquiry form on our weddings page. Larger functions are covered on our event catering page, and if you are earlier in the process our piece on engagement cakes may be more useful for now.
