Man pays $7,500 for slice of royal wedding cake

The new owner of a slice of wedding cake from the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton in 2011 says he plans to give it away, after buying it at auction on Friday for $7,500 (£4,800).

Auctioneer Julien's of Beverly Hills had expected the cake to raise just $2,000 at most. But it was eventually snapped up by Gee Chuang, co-founder and CEO of Listia.com, for nearly four times as much.

It was sold along with five dresses owned by Princess Diana, which sold for over $458,000 in total.

The slice of the eight-tier cake came wrapped in greaseproof paper in a tin with a blank wedding invitation on the Queen's stationery. It was bought by the auction house itself, which specialises in celebrity memorabilia, from an unnamed wedding guest.

The cake, covered in cream and white icing and decorated with 900 sugar-paste flowers, took cake-maker Fiona Cairns and her team five weeks to make. It features 17 different flowers and leaves known for their symbolism in the 'language of flowers'.

It was supposed to reach its best flavour after 13 months, so might by now be a little stale.

But those guests that scoffed their slice at the time may now have regrets: the value of the cake has been going up. Last year, Nottingham auction house Mellors & Kirk sold a similar piece for just £523. And this latest sale raised more money than a piece of Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding cake, which Julien's sold for just over $6,000 a few years ago.

The new purchaser of the slice of cake, Gee Chuang, doesn't plan to eat it - although, he says, it "still smells quite tempting".

Instead, he plans to store it in a cool, temperate controlled environment before giving it away via his online marketplace startup in Silicon Valley. He'll do this next April, he says, to coincide with the couple's wedding anniversary and expected birth of their second child.

"Items like the cake have at times been privately purchased for huge sums of money and are rarely made available to the public at large," he says.

"You should not have to be rich, famous or royal to collect the things you love. It is our goal at Listia to bring great value and unique opportunities to users of all socioeconomic backgrounds."



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