I'm doing a wedding cake as my gift to my son's best friend. It is an mid-October wedding. When I checked last week, the bride has 300 RSVP's saying "yes" and is expecting about 50 more to come in. so give or take about 350 guests.

I am comfortable with my largest tier being a 14x4. (14, 12, 10, 8, 6) Based on Earlene's chart, that is getting me 155 servings (the top 6" tier will be held as the anniversary cake.)

My largest rectangle-sized pan is 12x18. Here's where I get confused. If I am making kitchen cakes to fill in the extra 195 servings I need, and I am making them to replicate the wedding cake (which means they will be 4" high) how many 12x18 cakes do I need to make? Not sure why I'm having an issue figuring this out. Edited to add that upon researching this recently, I see varying answers from the above size serving as little as 72 and as much as 96. Hence, my question regarding how many to make? Looking for someone with experience in making this size to let me know what they think. Thanks,in advance, for the help.

Earline's chart give you a ton of cake. I've cut cake and I tell ya, you get even more slices then the Wilton chart tells you, so I stick with Wilton.

A 12x18 should give you at least 96 servings.

Here's what I'd do -

300 guests, less 20% that won't eat cake or kids, means you need 240 servings. The tiered cake you are making to me makes 208 servings. Adding one 12x18 will give you more then enough cake, even if they save the anniversary tier.

Good luck with all that!

I do 20%, some do less/more, some not at all. I mean, if you know a lot of those RSVPs are kids meals then do even less cake. For example, I have a wedding that has 120 people, but 40 of those are kids under 12. So we are doing a small tiered cake for 70 assuming parents won't be sticking around all night with small kids, they generally leave right after dinner, those with slightly older kids won't need full cake portions etc. I try and work with my bride to not give them a ton of cake (unless they want it).