I recently did a wedding cake for a bride who told me she invited 250 guests. So she wanted me to make her 250 serving of cake. I told her not everyone would eat cake, but she didn't listen to me. Apparently she had WAAAAAAY too much cake left over, and now is going around telling everyone that I charge for more servings than you actually need!!! Just wondering if anyone has a "formula" for cake serving/number of guests invited. I'm sure its only about 3/4 of guests actually eat cake at weddings!

Well, her first mistake was in assuming everyone she invited would actually come to the wedding.

As for her behavior, she's being a real witch with a capital B!

One thing you could do is have a deadline for the bride to provide the final number of servings needed based on the number of people confirmed to coming to the wedding. Even if "not everyone will eat cake" cake should always be provided for all guests in attendance. Up until that point, the price is an estimate. Once the final number is confirmed, the price can be finalized.

This has worked for me for 30 years:

Debi's 60% Rule says .....

60% of the total number INVITED will actually attend the wedding. Exceptions to the rule include: (1)if bride/groom is active military (2) if bride/groom is VERY involved in their church (3) if bride/groom is part of an ethnic group, like African-American or Asian. Then ad 5-7% for each category.

So if she INVITED 250, times 60%, means she can reasonably expect 150-175 to show (and it will usually be closer to the 150).

A bride who invites 250 and expects 250 to actually show is a Prima Donna Deluxe. Her problem is that she has not yet realized that she is NOT the most popular girl on the face of the planet.

I've heard of some people who put a clause in their contract to the effect of: "Bride was advice 250 servings would be too much cake and bride declined to reduce the order." And she initials next to this phrase!!

Oh yeah ... I always LUV the ones who tell all of their little friends how the cake lady MADE her buy too much cake! Pul-leaze!

I, also, had a bride try to pull this one on me. The difference was that she wanted her cake to be EXACTLY what she wanted, and it had to ALL be cake. I told her that what she wanted was going to be about twice as much cake as what she needed and I could do two of the four tiers as dummies instead. She just about threw a hissy fit..."NO, NO, NO!!! The ENTIRE thing MUST BE CAKE!" Well, when I gave her the final price I thought her eyes were going to melt out of her head. She insisted that I had doubled my price per serving because she "can do math" and it came to double the cost per guest. I explained to her (not in a very nice way I'm afraid) thatif she, in fact, "can do math" then she would find that the cost per serving is exactly what I stated...because that's how many servings of CAKE she wanted. Whether it was going to be eaten or not, she insisted that it ALL be cake. So, she's paying for CAKE! I told her that she was going to pay for what she gets, and she will get exactly what she pays for...which is exactly what she wanted.
By the way, this is the same woman who asked me, "Exactly who do you think you are, thinking you can charge prices like this for just cake?!" She came back, after she took my advice and went to three other bakeries (who all called me laughing about her) and received the lowest quote of nearly twice my price for the same cake.