I have been given a picture of a wedding cake with 9 tiers - 3 in the centre stacked on top of each other and 3 cascading on each side of the cake. There is a connecting 'stairs' which starts fromt the central cake and goes down to a 2 stacked wedding cake on each side. I don't know what this is called and don't know who provides these in the UK. Can someone tell me?

Also, how much would you charge for this in the Uk? there will be 250 guests but the bride definitely wants those cakes at the side. I told the wedding planner that it would be too much cake and said the cheaper option may be to do those as dummies. I origianally quoted £420 for a 6,8,10 and 12 " cake. Then she said she definitely wants the side ones too. How much would you charge for all that?

Regardless of where you are, first figure up your cost and then how much time it will take you - then you can figure how much it should cost. Don't sell yourself short. And regardless of how many people they are feeding, they have to pay for how many servings you have to make for the cake she is asking for. If she won't do anything less than a 400 serving cake (or whatever servings it adds up to be) then you charge her for the 400 serving cake! It doesn't matter if she is only feeding 250.

Hopefully someone from your area can help with finding the stand/equipment - this is something that was used around here a lot in the 80s, but not as much now. You may have to find this online.

thanks. I thought that it would also be slightly less work for me if I just buy the dummies and decorate.

nope - dummies should be just as expensive as real cake - you put just as much work decorating them, and the foam dummies will cost you as much as the baked cake! Dummies are not cheaper - if she wants that cake she's just gonna have to pay for it - there's no way to get it cheaper except for making all of the cakes smaller.