Hi! Hope somebody can help...
I have been asked to make a wedding cake: four tiers, 16", 12", 8" and...8".
Would you ever do something like that? The person did not tell me how many guests she is having, so I do not know how to price it ( I have a home business) . For now I told her 2.50 a slice...
Is it too delicate to deliver? She wants something" simple" , wich means...cheap......
Please, let me know soon, I have to meet her tomorrow...
Thanks!!!!!!!!!! 
Is the second 8" going to be on pillars? I price per servings of the cake that they want. It doesn't matter to me how many people they are inviting as far as the price. For now I am putting all my cakes together on site. I do not have the nerve or that special stacking system to travel with them together.
Kristin
It doesn't matter how many guests are there you should charge for how many servings you make.
Totally agree! Many many years ago I had a bride order cake for 300 and she only had 33 people show up at the wedding (I am NOT making that up!). Can you imagine if I had only gotten paid for the 33 and not the 300????? 
Here is a link to the Wilton wedding cake chart: http://www.wilton.com/wedding/cakeinfo/cakedata.cfm to help you determine how much cake you are making.
Also a link to my website page to show how to cut a wedding cake: http://cateritsimple.com/_wsn/page19.html
wolfley29, each decorator does it different. I do not count it as part of the servings and therefore do not charge for it. It's my gift to the bride. Some count it and charge for it, even tho' it won't be cut and served. Some count it as part of the servings knowing it will be cut at the wedding but then give the couple a gift certificate toward a free anniverary tier a year from now.
If the bride wants 130 servings, but does not want to serve the top tier, do you include in the price the servings the top tier would give, or do you add that one for free?
Think of it this way...Even a small 6" round cake by Wilton's chart is 14 servings - that is $35.00 if you charge $2.50/serving! That is a pretty nice wedding present that you may give to potentially every bride you make a cake for (word spreads like wildfire in the wedding busiess - free cake!)
If the top tier is going home, I figure out what is needed in the rest of the cake for the reception, then we add on the top tier for taking home...but everything is included in the final serving numbers and priced out for the final cost of the cake.
I usually tell couples that if they have 130 GUESTS coming to the reception, it does not necessarily mean that they need 130 SERVINGS of cake. I go by the 75% rule - order enough cake for 75% of the number of guests attending...130 guests would make about 98 servings.
Hope this makes sense! 
Nicole
wolfley29, each decorator does it different. I do not count it as part of the servings and therefore do not charge for it. It's my gift to the bride. Some count it and charge for it, even tho' it won't be cut and served. Some count it as part of the servings knowing it will be cut at the wedding but then give the couple a gift certificate toward a free anniverary tier a year from now.
If the bride wants 130 servings, but does not want to serve the top tier, do you include in the price the servings the top tier would give, or do you add that one for free?
Think of it this way...Even a small 6" round cake by Wilton's chart is 14 servings - that is $35.00 if you charge $2.50/serving! That is a pretty nice wedding present that you may give to potentially every bride you make a cake for (word spreads like wildfire in the wedding busiess - free cake!)
If the top tier is going home, I figure out what is needed in the rest of the cake for the reception, then we add on the top tier for taking home...but everything is included in the final serving numbers and priced out for the final cost of the cake.
I usually tell couples that if they have 130 GUESTS coming to the reception, it does not necessarily mean that they need 130 SERVINGS of cake. I go by the 75% rule - order enough cake for 75% of the number of guests attending...130 guests would make about 98 servings.
Hope this makes sense!
Nicole
Oops sorry, double post!
One thing that I do offer is a gift certificate when I get a booked wedding from a referral from a bride and groom that I have worked with before. It seems to work well - I get quite a few back.
Nicole
Thank you so much for your advises.
I really do not want to make a double 8" simply stacked on each other.....
What about the structure?...........
What I am going to tell her???????????
It is too heavy and it does not look good either!!!!!!!!!
So, how much should I charge for the cake?
If it serves about 150 servings it is 375$ ( 2.50$ per person)+ delivery+fresh flowers....
I saw every serving chart and they say 16" serves up to 100! I think it is too much.
Please, let me know what you think!
$375 is a fair price, assuming it is a simple cake. I would leave it to her to purchase the flowers. Delivery charge is up to you.
You don't have to do anything that won't be structurally sound or just plain ugly. I mean, you could put a board and dowels in the middle of the two 8" cakes, but why?? What would be the point of having two 8" cakes stacked on eachother? I'm perplexed. I would just tell the bride I highly advise against it for structural and aesthetic reasons. You could put a 6" there and it wouldn't look so odd.
Assemble that bad boy on site to save yourself some headaches and worry 
Thank you for all your responses!
I agreewith Kelleym:
Why somebody should ask for two 8" cakes????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[quote="lflowermoon"].....I saw every serving chart and they say 16" serves up to 100! I think it is too much.[/quote
However it is true .... a 16" 2-layer round cake will get 100 +/- servings from it.
(A wedding serving is 1x2x4. If this was a square 16" cake, you would cut 8 rows by 16 rows = 128 pcs. Factor in that on a round cake, the corners are already gone and you lose some pieces (uh....about 28 of them maybe?) and you have 100, give or take. Just do the math ... it works everytime.)
The slices still seem to small....
I like generous servings!
Most people do! But remember that a wedding cake is not intended to be the meal.
In the Roman Empire, a loaf of bread was broken over the bride's head and the guests would scramble for the crumbs, believing them to be a symbol of fertility. As time went on and weddings got bigger, there weren't enough "crumbs" for all of the guests, so the tradition of offering cut pieces of the cake came about. So when you hear people say that a standard serving is more like a taste than a meal ..... well, they are correct. It symbolizes a sharing of the bread with the couple, it represents the "crumbs" left by the couple .... it is not meant to be a smorgasbord of dessert.
But seriously, once you cut a 1x2x4, it's probably bigger than you think. Most people hear "one inch" and think "teeny tiny".
The slices still seem to small....
I like generous servings!
trust me, when a piece of cake is 4 inches tall, 1x2 wide is plenty! especially if there was a dinner at the reception and an open bar
The lady just called me: she wants that kind of cake, for 50 (.....) people, and, of course , it is too expencive, so she does not want to order it anymore!
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