I was finally feeling okay about doing this "End of July, outdoor, worried the frosting is going to slide off the cake or it will look horrible in some other fashion" wedding cake. (I'll chose a shorter title when I finally post a picture. )

Now I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and worried that I am going to single handedly ruin two weddings. Yes, now we're up to two!

A dear friend of mine called me tonight to talk about doing her wedding cake. I expected this, we'd talked about it when we went wedding dress shopping together. What I didn't expect is that the cake would BE FOR 350 PEOPLE!!!!!!

Deep breath.

When I think about it, it is probably going to be easier than the first one I'm doing because it will be in October, entirely indoors and she's thinking the main cake should just be a couple of tiers. Her thought is that she doesn't want people waiting all night to get their piece of cake so she'd like to put smaller cakes on each table. These would be pretty simple cakes with maybe just a single flower in the middle and minimal piping. I told her she'd need to determine how many people would be seated at each table so I know what size (if it's 10 people I could get away with a 6" round couldn't I?)

I break it down like that and I feel a little better.

Until I see all the stunning creations people have done and then I think "Who am I kidding? I've got three stinkin' cakes in my gallery and two of them were from the cake class!"

Oh help.

I like your cakes, they're very pretty & it's not the quantity of cakes - it's the quality, right ??
I don't think you'll have a problem with this ,plenty of time to practice before October !

I completely agree with Jules06! YOU CAN DO IT! Deep breath and relax! You have plenty of time to practice!

Work with her to determine a "true" headcount so you're not doing more work than you need. Total invite list x 60% = show rate. If she's expecting 350 guests, did she really invite over 550 people?

If you figure 10 to a table (and in my experience, it's usually 8 ), then you are talking 35 to 45 tables. that's 35 to 45 small cakes. Do you have the capacity and work space to deal with up to 45 small cakes? Do you realize what kind of time that is? Boxes? Transportation? My goodness, if you assume 30 minutes per 2-layer cake, you're talking about 20 hours just in baking time. (If you can do more than 2 pans in the oven at the same time, of course this time will be shorter......)

I personally would't do it for less than $25 per 6" cake per table, if that's her plan (and that's if I"m feeling generous and charitable).

If she's planning on the guests cutting their own cake, explain to her IN DETAIL how the cake should be cut since most guests have no idea how to cut wedding cake slices and my bet is they would cut the cake in 4 or 6 pieces then complain on how there wasn't enough cake.

Fran... deep breath is right! lol!
I agree with indy on this one. I try to stray my brides away from doing table cakes or even those god aweful mini cakes (one per couple or guest) because like you, I work out of my kitchen and the space is a huge issue. If you don't have that much experience yet, you may not want to go the cake per table route. (Not trying to be pesimistic here, just realistic). You should let your friend know that even though cakes would be on the tables, guests still aren't going to cut them until after dinner, then she'll have to worry about wait staff assisting while they're trying to do coffee service, etc. It may become more of a headache than waiting.

If she wants to do a smaller presentation cake, suggest a kitchen cake to go along with it as alternative. That won't have to be decorated and chances are the wait staff will start cutting it before the big cake gets cut so they can already have them plated and ready to go.

It's best to sit her down and talk to her and let her know the amount of work involved, and how it could hinder your participation in upcoming wedding events (like rehearsal dinner, ceremony, etc.) I've gone to quite a few of the weddings I've done the cakes for, and believe me - you won't make it to the church if you're setting up 40 cakes!

Hope this helps.

P.S. I've also often wondered how these brides deal with the cake cutting .... do they buy 35-45 cake cutting knives to put on the table? Do they have the guests cut the cake with their dinner knife? (how tacky). Do they send a cake-cutting person from table to table to cut the cakes, which to me just erases the logic of "I dont' want them to wait 'all night' to get their cake" if they are waiting for someone to come to the the table to cut and serve them. (All night? What the heck is that?)

Brides needs to look at this logistically rather than just looking at how "fun" and "cute" the whole idea is.

Indy - you are too funny! Maybe they just dig into the cakes like savages! lol!!

I hear you though - I don't think brides realize it's SO much more expensive to go that route! They think "well, it's not like they're huge cakes, so it will cost less".... I say NAY - it costs so much more because you're basically charging a la carte for each cake and have to account for your time - so $25 a cake is probably about right.

If she's worried about people waiting all night - she can just do the cutting of the cake close to the end of dinner.... get all the traditional stuff out of the way so her guests can enjoy dancing!

It's so much easier for you to decorate three or four larger tiers than 35 small cakes!!!

Thank you all for your replies. I appreciate the encouragment and you've given me some things to bring back to her. I think I will run the sheet cake idea by her. I'm as new to this type of thing as she is!

I do have the space to freeze all those little ones and I do have a couple of people I could enlist for help but doing a couple of sheet cakes would certainly be easier! And if I mention to her that they can have it cut before hand to pass it out quickly she may go for it. (Fortunately for me she's a very reasonable person!)

I had been thinking about all those boxes and the cost of serving utensils for each table. That would be insane! (Not to mention transporting them!) She is still in the preliminary stages of planning her wedding so I'm sure things will change a bit. And good point about not all invited actually showing.

Now that it's morning and with your ideas I don't feel so overwhelmed.

Thanks.