How To: Make a Wedding Cake for Under $50 Using a Grocery Store Sheet Cake

by Meg Keene, APW Executive Editor

A few weeks ago, the APW team got together to do a little flower shoot (which means awesome lazy girl projects to follow). While we were at it, I decided that we were going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a zillion years: turn a grocery store cake into a really lovely wedding cake. You know, a post you could show to your mom when she didn’t get you were saving money AND being super classy. (Think of this as a follow up to our Trader Joe’s wedding bouquet.)

So it was decided that I would go to Whole Foods, and get some of their cute cakes for us to work on. But I was really determined to take it a step farther than that. I wanted to show that you could take ANY kind of grocery store cake and turn it into a wedding cake. (Because, let’s be for real: my home town does not have a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s or any kind of gourmet grocery store, and your town might not either.) So, I set out to find the world’s most average sheet cake. This being Oakland, I tracked one down at the Lucky’s in my neighborhood, where the people behind me in line were pretty clearly high on crack. So, you know, that seemed not-gourmet enough.

And when I got this cake I was OVER THE MOON, because it was suddenly clear to me that this was going to be the awesomest of all the projects (in my estimation). So I brought the cake into the shoot, and everyone just sort of looked at it, worriedly. Then they looked at me very doubtfully. (Credit where credit was due: Maddie was as excited as I was about it.) While I was working on the cake, I kept waving people away, because everyone wanted to pretty-fy it: take off the sprinkles, take of the piping. And do.

But for truth. When I finished, there was a collective, “Ooooooooo…..” It was good, my friends. So without further ado, the world’s easiest (and cheapest) wedding cake. If you do this for your wedding, I want to have a drink with you.

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Photos: Allison Andres / Flowers: Belle-Flower / Styling: Meg Keene for APW

How To Make A Grocery Store Wedding Bouquet

How To Make A Wedding Cake

How to Self-DJ Your Wedding

How To Set Up and Break Down Your Wedding

And the whole APW How To section

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