Ahhhh....okay, so I'm totally excited..(probably more so than I should be, but oh well) 
So, I've taken all 3 Wilton's courses and have improved a lot in my decorating. I've taken all my practice cakes in to work and my co-workers have loved them......the effort is paying off. 
I've got 4 cake orders for Feb., which is good for me cause I don't want to be totally swamped since I work 40 hrs. a week and have a 6 year old at home. Now, my boss came up to me today and asked if I would make the cakes for the company banquet in March. They have this big awards banquet for our drivers (I work for a trucking company), that have driven a Million Miles without an accident/incident. It's a pretty big deal, the president of the company comes and hangs out as well as the owner (if he's in town). So, I'm looking at enough cakes to feed 150-200 people. This could be a huge break for me and I'm totally stressing.. (kind of since March is still a month away)...but anyway, I sure could use some help. I'm going to make a sheet cake to feed 40 (12x?) that will have the Congratulations message written on it. Then 2- 9"x3" high carrot cakes (so that's what another 40?) = 80 served. (They want me to pre slice them too)....I need 2 more cakes...or should I go for another large sheet cake or 2 smaller sheet cakes? Next question.....The banquet is on a Friday..how would I go about doing this when I work 8-5pm everyday? I plan on cooking the cakes a week? in advance and wrapping them REALLY well and freezing them until a couple of days before. The cakes are going to be just standard BC icing with simple shell borders. I may put some roses on the larger sheet cake, but I've got tons of RI and Fondant roses and other flowers...so I don't need to make those. The only other thing I can think of that will need to be made far in advance is the logo....Which is super easy..*sigh*. I need red, white and blue colors and was thinking of making a chocolate transfer? Or a FBCT? Or color flow...I'm not sure, either way I could make that quite in advance and be good with that. Right? I want to make the best impression possible since these cakes will be seen/eaten by a lot of people that have the potential to get me steady orders. Oh, they said they'd pay me (of course)...and to just let them know a price...like I know what to charge! So some ideas on that would be great too. I don't want to be too expensive cause I want them to ask me to do more cakes for them, but I definitely want the payment to cover the effort put into the cakes as well as the ingredients! Help please!! 
How exciting! Try not to feel overwhelmed and take it one step at a time. You can freeze cakes, just be sure to wrap them VERY well. You could also make the buttercream a few days ahead of time. Then all you would have to do is frost them, so you can take your time and make them perfect.
I would do the extra cake as a sheetcake...maybe make one sheetcake chocolate, one yellow, and one strawberry or lemon. Then you could also have the carrot cakes.
What a great opportunity!
I'm sorry, I can't help with any information, but I just wanted to say hi to a fellow trucking company employee!! I take cakes to work all the time for the drivers, I figure they don't get home baked goodies very often.
The only thing I can say is make sure you charge enough. It sounds like a big company, they can afford it. Check with your local bakeries for comparison prices. Good luck!!
Let me try and answer some of your questions. First if they want the cakes precut I would go with all sheet cakes. You can ice them, then take and divide them up into the size of slice you want and put a little something in each square. I have a couple in my photos that I did for my dh's office Christmas party. You could do one cake with either a truck or the logo on it and have the rest of the cake / cakes in the kitchen to cut first. That way your main cake could stay on "display" until it was needed towards the end (that way more people would see it). I had to feed about the same amount of people and I made 3 sheet cakes that were 15x18x3 and that was plenty. You will want to bake ahead of time and just take them out the morning before work on decorating days. If it were me I would try and take off either 1/2 day or maybe the whole day on Friday. Then you could get one done Thursday night and the rest during the day on Friday. Good luck and have fun with them.
Melissa
Sorry I'm not much help either...but just wanted to say Congratulations!! 
That's wonderful news! I agree in that you should make more sheet cakes. Make & color all your frosting a couple of days ahead of time so you won't have to worry about that.
Good luck!!
Thank you guys for your quick replies and ideas. Would anyone by any chance have an idea on what to charge? Also, would I take the cake out the morning before work and let it thaw all day, then ice it when I get home? Would I leave the cake sit out? Or put it in the fridge after it is iced?
When I take my cakes out of the freezer I just lay a dish towel down on the cabinet and lay the cake on it. Leave all your wrapping on the cake and it will be ready for you when you get home. Once the cake is coated in buttercream you can just let it sit out as long as you don't have some type of filling in it that woud spoil. As far as charging I am not sure what things sell for in you area but I would probably charge between $1.50 and 2.00 per slice.
Thank you mcalhoun. I was thinking in the $1.50 to $2.00 range myself. We have a very limited bakery selection around here....so they charge quite a bit. So this should be a reasonable price. I was planning on filling one of the cakes with a raspberry jam, one with buttercream (which I know will be fine)...and the other one with some type of pudding. If the pudding is made with milk, it will have to go in the fridge. Hrm...any ideas on non-refridgerated fillings?
HI
Last Canada day I baked a cake to feed the small town I live in. It was huge 4 1/2 feet by 2 feet.
It took a lot of planning. I baked all the cakes in advance and wrapped them in saran wrap a couple of times and then in foil a couple of times. (I made some extra just in case-you never know!)
Then I made up all of my icing and froze it in buckets. I also put saran wrap on top and then put the lid on.
I had 14 small FBCT's to do so I did these all in advance as well and kept them in the freezer until I needed them.
I put the cake together 2 layer with buttercream filling. Then flat iced the whole cake. The next day I drew the map of Canada on it and filled in each province with a different color of buttercream. Then I put the FBCT's of the provincial flags on the corresponding province, put the border on and voila! Cake done. If you break it down like that I find any cake easier to do. Sometimes I run behind and am not that organized and then find myself up all hours of the night!-that actually happens more than not.
If you want the pic of the cake is in my photos.
Hope this helps a little.
Tammy
Is there any way to find out what they usually pay? Any idea where they usually get the cakes? You could call that bakery adn see how much they charge for an order that size. I agree with making sure you charge how much you want to get paid. So be competetive with your local bakeries. Maybe $1.50 for your reg flavors but $2 for carrot or red velvet. You wouldn't want the Boss loving the cake and expectign some great deal on it when he can definitly afford it. You could do a carrot sheet cake precut in the squares as another member mentioned. Those are cute with little carrots piped on them. You could make the carrots out of royal and do them ahead of time. Maybe you could do chocolate transfers, company name og logo on top of each square. There were posts recently on candy roses. You could make them out of candy startign now and just have to pop them on the cakes when you are ready. Taking at least half a day on that Friday sounds like a great idea if you can. HTH
Congrats and good luck!!!
If you want a filling that won't go bad and is easy you could always go for the Nutella. You can either use it right out of the jar or mix it with your buttercream. Congrats on your orders!!
WOW! I called the 3 bakeries that we have around here, 2 of them would only charge $95, that is for a 1/2 sheet cake and 2 carrot cakes, both double stacked and filled with basic decoration. I definitely can't beat that price!! The other bakery quoted a price of $136, and she only has one person to help her out. Her stuff is more fresh baked too. Sheesh. So I talked to my boss about this and he said he just wanted to help me get some publicity so he said $150, would be fine. I love the people I work with, they're awesome. He might even let me take off Friday to finish them up, he said since it is work related. So, I've decided to do a marble cake with raspberry for the sheet cake w/FBCT of the company logo, 2 carrot cakes 9" round and an 8" square butter cake with chocolate icing w/Nuttella in the middle. The cake scraps are going to be cake balls, some white chocolate dipped and some milk chocolate dipped...I'll throw those in as an "extra"...free of charge. Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll make sure to post pictures when I'm done!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%