This morning on Good Morning America (ABC) they did a segment on money saving tips for couples getting married. One of their budget friendly tips was to order a dummy cake and serve sheet cake. The girl doing the interview thought this was the new it thing to do. From reading the posts on here (as I am a newbie and have never ever done anything close to a wedding), all of you well versed cakers say you charge roughly the same or darn close to the same price for a dummy and sheet cake set up as you would for an actual cake. Is it me or were they sending the wrong message this morning. There are going to be a ton of unhappy bride-to-be's at their bakeries wondering why they cant have a dummy and sheet cake for peanuts. Sorry it just bugged me because I know that it takes the same amount of time to decorate Styrofoam as it does an actual cake. Just babbling...

I think I heard before that some places actually rent out dummy cakes...like they can use the same cake for several weddings...so it would just be a rental fee. Actually I think maybe a year ago there was a big discussion on CC about that.

Yep...I was actually looking at a few different websites last night. There are places where you can order dummy cakes that are already made. Apparently they ship them to you & when you send them back after the wedding, you get your deposit money back. It's not something I would do, but I guess it is an alternative for some people.

Yes about a year ago i saw where you could rent dummy cakes. They even have an empty spot wher you can put the a small amount of real cake , so the couple can still cut their first slice. But you have to rent from their selection.

This was a discussion a few weeks ago on here about it. Some ppl were saying that sometimes it costs more to do the dummies, so one might be better off just ordering the cake the want.

I remember this post before too Kitagrl.

Here is a link to one of the rental sites....

http://www.cakerental.com/

A three tier cake from one of her galleries rents for $150 plus shipping. To design your own costs more. After you add the cost of sheet cakes, it doesn't seem like much of a bargain to me.

But hey... let's save these brides a buck and give them a used cake to display!!

I don't see it being much of a cost savings unless a baker has dummy cakes pre-made and available for rental as was mentioned. It really irks me that the media continues to put this type of misinformation out there for brides. Where they came up with this so called "cost saving" strategy is beyond me. It's no different than these wedding websites that inform brides they can get a custom wedding cake for $1.00 to $1.50 per serving.

Today I worked on dummy cakes for an upcoming bridal show. I spent 7 hours decorating one cake that was already covered in fondant. It was a dummy that I covered some time ago and decided to change the design. I still have approximately two more hours of decorating to do on it tomorrow. To compensate myself appropriately for a dummy cake, I would have to charge my normal hourly rate. It's the same work involved, and once you add in the cost of the sheet cakes, the cost for a real cake versus a dummy doesn't vary that much. The bride is better off ordering an actual cake. Whoever came up with the idea of a dummy cake accompanied by sheet cakes didn't do their homework.

I rent out my dummy cakes. I make them for display purposes but if someone wants to pay to rent it why not let them. Most often when they rent a dummy they order cupcakes and rent a cupcake tower as well. I don't think it really saves my brides a lot of money but I suppose they want the look of the cake for the photos and the convenience of cupcakes for serving.

Okay, I have a question. I went to the cake rental website. It says that you pay 200 to rent the cake and when they get it back you are refunded 200 bucks. How does she make any money???? The cakes are amazing so I cannot imagine they are easy and not time consuming to make. The only thing I can think of is shipping-she maybe make 40 bucks off that. It is really a great idea, I just don't see where she makes any money.

Thanks guys. Well then, I would say that is a pretty good business. Why didn't I think of that first.

I'm curious as to how many people actually get their deposits back. To me, it doesn't seem like the decorations would hold up very well by the time they've been shipped to bride, used & then shipped back to be returned. If the dummies need to be returned "as Borrowed", it seems like there would be a lot of deposits that don't get returned (but who knows???).

AZCakeGirl... I agree with you. Seems that the cakes would have to withstand alot during shipment. And what happens if the cake gets damaged prior to the wedding? What does the bride do then? Who is going to fix the cake in time for the wedding?

Also, I just noticed something on the website I linked to earlier. She says:

"After the couple's "feeding each other" act, the display cake is taken back into the kitchen and the guests are served regular sheet cakes from the local bakery or wholesale store. "

I guess you could save a little money by getting the cakes at the wholesale clubs. I wasn't thinking along those lines. But no matter - some people don't put that much importance on a cake and they aren't willing to pay what a good cake costs. So this may be perfect for them.

It's good to know though that there are plenty of other people out there who do value a top quality cake and they are willing to pay what it's worth. I wish you all many of these customers!!