Cake Cutting Fee

If we order a cake through the preferred venue it is $3 per person (this including the cost of the cake). If we order a cake elsewhere, it will be $1 per person.

Some of the venues I've looked at charged up to $5 per slice cutting fee... so yeah, that's normal.

One of the places I looked at had a $5/person fee and we had to use their Bakery. We Bye Felicia'd that place pretty fast.

Normal but a lot of times they will "wave" it- like a courtesy thing. mine was waved.

I've heard of it, but that seems expensive to me. Mine isn't charging one.

Oh my goodness I am so with @CeliaMilton on that one!! I couldn't stand whenever I heard of a cake cutting fee. That's just another excuse for venues to take money from you honestly. Who the hell made that up to begin with? Like it's not that dam hard to cut some cake and serve it. Luckily our venue did not have a cake cutting fee.

ETA: grammer

I'm not being charged anything but this is common.

Ours charges $2 pp if we do NOT order the cupcakes through them, even though they will be doing NOTHING!

We were going to go through them, but their fee for small cupcakes is $4.50 PER DAMN CUPCAKE, but if I order directly from the same baker it is 1 dozen for $25. So, I can actually save over $200 by using the baker directly, and just pay the stupid fee! So frustrating!!!

ETA: Oh AND they are charging 20% gratuity plus tax on that damn $2 pp fee!

We also have a cake cutting fee at our venue. And it's $3pp so not unreasonable to me...

$3 seems high, ours is $1.

We don't have a cake cutting fee, so I can't speak as to whether or not what your venue is charging is high. I like Celia's idea, but I also know a lot of brides will go for cupcakes instead to avoid the cake cutting fee (which is part of the reason why wedding cupcakes became so popular).

I know you mentioned this is for a family member to put in their portfolio...could they make cupcakes for the guests and a small cake (almost like the top of the cake) for just you, FH and the wedding party? Smaller cake cutting fee involved, and the baker gets to showcase fancy cupcakes as well as a smaller wedding cake

That's how they get you to use their preferred vendor.

That's high. My venue doesn't have on site catering so it's all outside vendors. Even my caterer "threw in" cake cutting and coffee service at no extra charge.

Our venue charged a $2 per person cake cutting fee even though we served cupcakes

Some places do have a cake cutting fee

Mine is $75 for the cake

Yeah, our venue charges $2 per slice. it's such BS. they are literally upcharging us on every possible thing because its a wedding.... (fee for more than one entree, fee for using the outdoor bar, fee for delivering welcome bags, the list goes on)

The venue we had for our wedding didn't, but for private parties in the past I have been charged a cake cutting fee. I think it's pretty common.

That is high! Especially since they wouldn't have charged you if you got a cake through them and you aren't getting any discount.

I would try discussing it and point that out. If they won't budge, I like Celia's idea a lot! you could have small tiered cakes for each table. That would be really fun so long as your aunt wouldn't mind

This may be too late for you but these are the kinds of ridiculous things that you need to negotiate out before signing a contract with a venue. Yes, you CAN negotiate. Even though you are only a month out, try talking to the venue to see if you can get this charge reduced or eliminated.

Before I signed the contract, I negotiated our minimum down from 75 to 70, and we ended up with 73 so I saved $350. I also had 2 guests that are Glatt Kosher and the venue wanted to charge me an additional $75/person to bring in a Kosher meal and told me there was a minimum of 5 kosher meals to purchase (this would have cost me an extra $375). There was nothing in the contract about there being a minimum order on the Kosher meals. I asked the venue owner about it (very nicely and respectfully) and he said since it was only 2 meals, if we wanted to purchase the meals ourselves and bring them to the venue, he was fine with that and there would be no additional charge. Meals are costing us $60 total instead of $375. You never know if you don't ask.