Wedding Desserts from The Magpie Bakery

Wedding desserts are some of the most personal orders that leave the Magpie kitchen. Some couples arrive knowing exactly what they want — a tiered cake, ivory buttercream, fresh flowers. Others arrive with a feeling: dessert that looks like a family holiday table, with pies and tarts and cookies instead of a single centerpiece. Both are conversations the bakery is glad to have, and both start the same way — with a date, a venue, and a guest count.

The Magpie Bakery is a small, from-scratch North Jersey bakery, not a wedding factory. That shapes how wedding work is handled: you talk directly with the bakery that will do the baking, the plan is built around your actual reception rather than a fixed package, and every order gets an honest answer about what the calendar can hold.

Cake, dessert table, or both?

This is usually the first real decision, and there is no wrong answer — only the shape that fits your reception. Wedding requests at the Magpie tend to fall into three patterns:

• A classic wedding cake. A tiered or single-tier centerpiece, cut and served as the dessert course. The simplest to plan and the most photographed moment of the night.
• A cutting cake plus a dessert table. A small cake for the toast and the photos, surrounded by an assortment — pies, fruit tarts, bars, cookies — that guests serve themselves. Variety without giving up the cake-cutting moment.
• A dessert table instead of a cake. For couples who would rather offer a spread than a slice. It works best when the assortment is planned around the guest count and how the venue will present it, not just assembled from favorites.

Each shape changes the math on servings, variety, and presentation. For a full walkthrough of portions, mix, and timing — written from the bakery's side of the counter — read Planning a Wedding Dessert Table before your first conversation.

Past work from the Magpie album

Photography by Skyland Creative · See the full gallery.

What to bring to a first conversation

You do not need a finished vision — the bakery will help you build one. What makes a first conversation genuinely productive is the practical frame:

• The date and the venue. These decide whether the calendar has room and what the logistics conversation looks like.
• An approximate guest count. Even a range ("around 120") shapes servings, tiers, and how large an assortment needs to be.
• The presentation style you are picturing. A tiered centerpiece, a cutting cake with a table, or a table alone — and whether dessert will be plated by the venue or self-serve.
• Design direction and flavors. Colors, an invitation, inspiration photos, or simply "berries and white buttercream." The cake & bakery gallery is a good place to borrow direction from real past work.
• Dietary questions. Vegan options and other dietary requests are worth raising early so the bakery can say honestly what it can and cannot accommodate.

How Magpie works with North Jersey couples

Everything is baked in one kitchen at 2-14 Riverside Square in Bloomingdale — there is no second location and no showroom, just a storefront worth the drive. Couples work with Magpie from across North Jersey, including Passaic County, Morris County, and Bergen County; the conversation, like the baking, happens where the ovens are, and planning a visit is often the easiest way to talk through a design in person.

Two honest notes. First, pricing: wedding work varies too much for a generic rate card, so quotes follow the plan — servings, formats, design, and date all move the number, and the bakery quotes the request after reviewing it. Second, logistics: pickup, delivery, venue timing, and setup are settled directly with the bakery for each event rather than promised by a web page. Both conversations are quick once the practical frame is in hand.

Around the wedding itself

Weddings rarely arrive alone. Bridal showers and engagement parties follow the custom-cake inquiry path, while rehearsal dinners, welcome gatherings, and morning-after brunches are a natural fit for the trays and platters on Catering & Corporate Gifts. If you would rather start in writing than by phone, the contact page lists every way to reach the bakery.