To me this looks like a 6-8-10-12, but it almost looks like the bottom tier is a little bigger.  Just wanted a second opinion.

Thanks!

I think you are right... it looks like there is a 3" difference instead of a 2" difference on that bottom tier to acommodate the berries that are sitting on it.

it just might be a bit bigger but then the angle of the camera seems to change there plus the strawberries aren't helping anything

also they were careful to not let the bottom tier look squatty--it's a nice height--prolly taller than the other tiers

very delectable cake

(im not drooling i'm slurping air)

AI also notice a difference in the bottom. It looks to be 3" bigger.

Thanks guys.  The person needs 130 servings, but I think a 4" size difference is better for all those strawberries.  How would a 6-10-14 look?  I just think it's better to have a bigger difference so the strawberries don't go toppling off the cake.  But I also think that a 6-10-14 might look too squatty.  There are only so many round tier configurations to meet their serving requirements.  What would ya'll do?

Thanks!

11x9x7x5

no no no--edited to say i was mixing square cake servings w/rounds sorry

be right back

in rounds i'd do

13x10x7x5

66+39+18+10

but i would bake them in a 14 11 8 & 6 so that i erred on the side of plenty of servings

because the cakes shrink a bit and i shave the side a bit so that's what i'd do

i guess eventually i'd get to 13x10x8x6

I don't like the 6-10-14 combo... it does come off squatty.

Ok thanks for the second opinion.  I had the same feeling about the squatty factor.  Maybe I will just go with the configuration in the picture.  I don't have any odd sized pans believe it or not.  I was planning on getting a 9" set in the near future.  K8 thanks for the suggestion about trimming.  However, I suck at knife skills and it might look more like a trapezoid than a circle.  Yeah, only I could do that.
 

Ok, now can someone double-count for me?  How many strawberries do you think I would need?  I am estimating 200-250 (I didn't count the ones on the top tier, as they are using a topper).  The cake is going to be in the center of the room so they want them all around the base.

Thanks again.

Yeah... I'd say 200-250 would do it.  That is a LOT of berries... you will need to buy 300+ to make sure you have enough nice ones.  What are you going to charge for it?  We have someone asking for a cake covered in truffles/cake balls and I am trying to work it all out too... I mean I wouldn't do chocolate dipped berries for less than $2.00 each in peak season.  That's a LOT.

You're exactly right.  It's painful for me to think about dipping all those damn berries.  Their wedding is in December which is going to make life interesting come berry-hunting time.  I should have paid better attention to the pricing at Costco last month.  From what I have read, people are charging about $4 per berry, but I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about that.  I need to figure out my supply cost first.  Then I need to figure out how much alcohol I need to drink before I start dipping infinity berries, because I will surely need it. 
 

Yeah... off season I'd say $3.50-4.00 each would be about right.  Plus you can't dip them ahead of time.  You have to do it day of or night before or they will weep on you.  I hate the little buggers... other than to eat of course!  LOL

$800+ in berries alone... not a bad order though! 

We'll see-I'm not sure how badly she wants this particular cake.  :)

we did them constantly at this caterer i worked with

they are all done day of unfortunately

but i'd toss 'em in a strainer, rinse abundantly well

have two large flat bottom plastic containers ready and cover the bottom with two-three layers of paper towels

layer in a bunch of berries but don't crowd

get them to roll them around on the paper towels by just rotating the whole container

as if the container was running bases like in baseball

they start drying themselves

gentle them from that into the other paper towel lined container--roll

in the meantime reline the first container with dry towels

repeat a few times till paper towels stay dry

then we either had to hand roll each one a bit more in another paper towel as we dunked in choco

or if we could then lay them out on a sheet tray they would be perfect in an hour or so

tons of ways to do this--that's what we did to process big batches