You’re a skilled baker and love all things sugar and chocolate. You’re the person friends and family call on when they need a birthday or celebration cake, so could expand into wedding cake making and build a business from your talent?

Things to consider:

You must understand and conform to local hygiene regulations.

Unless you have staff you will be limited in the amount of business you can handle – most weddings take place on weekends and you will need to deliver and set up the cakes. This will affect your earning potential.

What will be the impact on your family life? Although you will be able to start by working from home you will have to work weekends and probably some evenings for appointments.

© Andy Bulmer

Here are our top tips for getting your wedding cakes business up and running:

Create your marketing and business plan first. You may be able to bake a great cake but can you sell it and make a profit? Research your local market thoroughly.

Practice – and keep practicing. You will also need photos for your portfolio so make sure you get good shots of your successes.

A good, search engine optimised website is essential these days. Make sure yours can be easily updated and that you get great photos of your designs. Blogs and other social media can also be used very effectively by bakers.

Get out and network. By its nature, a cake business will operate in a local area. Make sure you have good links with wedding planners and other wedding suppliers in your area.

Pricing is key to having a viable cake business. You will need to consider

• the cost of materials (including samples, stands etc)
• the time taken to bake & decorate
• time and costs for delivering your cakes
• the time spent on appointments and customer service
• overheads such as marketing, accountancy

Customers will want to taste your cakes before they commit. Samples have to be top quality (read my own experience of wedding cake tasting here) so no keeping them in the freezer. Many cake makers set up “tasting days” where they schedule their appointments together and have lots of fresh baked samples.

Make sure you can deliver cakes as successfully as you make them.

Know your limitations and build your portfolio gradually. The scope for things going wrong with wedding cakes is quite high and there is generally little time to fix them. Don’t accept an order for a 4 tier extravaganza if you have only ever done cupcakes.