Paying $$ for a Cake Tasting?

I went to check out a few places with my sister before she got married, all of them charged for a tasting unless you were already committed to using them. Then if you did pay for a tasting and decided to go with them then you would have that money go toward the cost of your cake so the tasting was essentially free. But I can see why, they don't want just a million people coming in saying they have a wedding in 5 months and want free cake. If that was the case I'd check out a different bakery every month for free cake!

However, ours was free because it was included in our catering package. Our venue uses two different bakeries so we were allowed free tasting at both.

For the dinner choices through our caterer we had 4 plates free, each additional plate was $50 but we couldn't do the tasting until after booking the venue, otherwise we would have had to pay for each plate I believe.

Yeah it turns out it's not very common in my area to charge for a cake tasting, but some places do it. FH said the same thing it would be fine if they took the price off of the cake, but they didn't mention that they would do that. This bakery is owned by a non profit organization. I think that could be one of the reasons why they would charge for a cake tasting. I am in NJ but I want to stay local so my options are limited unless I want to drive 1+ hours.

No, and most places if you are wanting to go with them they should let you taste for free because they want to get your business. Our venue has a bakery attached, so we did our food and cake tasting together. No charge

Our cake tasting was free.

I only had one tasting and it was $25, which was applied to my order. Every other cake vendor I looked into also charged a tasting fee. I can totally understand why they charge; there is a definite cost associated with it and I'm sure it adds up.

Most bakeries around me change a fee. The highest I've seen is $25. Some of the smaller businesses that don't have store fronts but just do specialty cakes charge for the cost of supplies since they don't keep a stock of anything and make small cakes to sample.

We paid for one tasting, up to 6 flavors. The cost of our tasting was applied towards our final amount due though.

Usually if the vendor is a package deal through your venue then the tasting is included. We contracted our own cake vendor & paid $30 for a tasting.

We tried 2 different companies for the wedding and did not have to pay a red cent. They even gave us cake to take home. In addition to that I had have other events in the past where I had to shop around for a good bakery and never had to pay for a tasting. This is absurd. I wouldn't hire such a company just on principal! Who knows what other charges they will sneak in later on!

A lot of the vendors I was looking at charged for cake tasting unless your final order was over a certain price ($400 or something above my budget anyways). The one we are going with is free.

I did but it was like $10. It makes sense though. They still have to use their time//supplies so why shouldn't you pay?

Only 2 vendors that we spoke to were charging for tastings. Both were $50. We ended up not making appointments with them.

Yes. But then it is taken out of the price of the wedding cake, if you decide to purchase. Otherwise there are a lot of people that will order tons of cake flavors to try and extra to take home just for fun. Here are some cool ideas for "non-traditional" cake flavors to ask to try at your next cake tasting. http://bygracecakes.com/2015/03/05/wedding-cake-flavors-thinking-outside-the-box/

We didn't pay for ours, but I have heard of it.

A couple places I've looked at charge around 20-30..but it's usually credited towards your cake if you book with them and 1 place let you pick 10 flavors..not bad for $20.

Actually, a lot of bakers in our area (Baltimore, MD) charge a fee for the tasting. Some were free, but most charged $10pp or $20 per couple, somewhere in that range. All the bakers that charged a fee for the tasting would apply that cost to our order. We booked tastings with the free bakers first, and went with one of those, so we didn't have to worry about it!

I am a cake baker and I charge $25 for the tasting (It costs me money to make samples) but if the couple chooses me to make their cake, I take that $25 off the final cake price.