How Much Would You Pay For a Slice of the Royal Cake?

Always wished that you had been summoned by an official invitation to attend Will and Kate’s wedding, instead of simply joining the 2 billion voyeurs watching from afar? Now, for all those who felt that little bit left out when their invitation to the royal nuptials never arrived, an opportunity to experience a tasty piece of the special day has materialised.

Cleverly timed to coincide with the royal lovebirds’ recent first anniversary, a single untouched slice of their eight-tiered fruit cake was recently put up for auction. Housed in a white and gold decorated tin, along with a compliments message slip reading “With best wishes from TRH (Their Royal Highnesses) The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall in celebration of the wedding of TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge”. The lucky bidder will also receive the 16-page “Order of Service” from Westminster Abbey, which includes the vows, hymns and prayers from the wedding.

The first bid for the cake came in at £100, and now, with still over a week to go, the bidding sits at a cool £1453. The auctioneers had only expected it to fetch a maximum of one thousand pounds, but with the auction not closing until 24th May 2012, it appears that just like anything else William and Kate touch, it has simply turned to gold.

Exactly how long this, or any, piece of fruit cake remains edible is a topic that is regularly bounced around the wedding-world thanks to the tradition in which the top tier of the wedding cake is frozen, allowing the couple to then share it together on their first wedding anniversary. The ‘still safe to eat’ estimates range from 3 months to as long as 25 years, dependent on ingredients and opinion, but if you are planning to investing over a thousand pounds for a single slice of the royal cake then you might want to think twice before munching into it anyway.

You can head to PFC Auctions to see where the bidding is up to, or if you are royally mad, make a bid yourself.