I had a friend come to me yesterday saying that her roomate is engaged and is looking for someone to do her cake. She is only having 60 people attend the wedding. I have decided that I will charge $3.50 per slice for this fondant covered cake - which is quite reasonable, I just got married and the cheapest fondant covered cake I could find was $4.50 per slice. The problem is - what size pans do I use? If it was me I would do a 14", 10" and a 6" which would serve 118 in round or 166 in square. I don't want to make this only 2 tiers...that doesn't seem like a big enough cake for a wedding...or would you just go with a 10", 8" 6" cake? And is my fee reasonable? Only $210 for a wedding cake???
A 14", 10", 6" would leave you with quite a lot of extra cake if there are only 60 servings cut. I have made a wedding cake with an 11", 8", 5" round, and it looks very nice, and serves either 50 or 60, depending if the top tier is cut or not.
I think your price is very fair from your description of the prices in your area. 
I would suggest a 6-8-10 also.. That's 68 servings by Wilton (60 by mine). That will look nice.
a 6,8,10 is a great combination... it's a very modern look though and leaves little room for flowers to be placed on the ledge. Here is a great example... near the botton chocolate with white fondant dots.
www.bundtcakefactory.com/index.asp?action=page&name=26
It would also look great with spaces left for flowers in between (more traditional look)
Ultimately let the bride decide, she can either get the 6,8,10 which is VERY close to the number of servings she needs (if she is not saving the top tier) OR pay for the cake she wants. if she is still in the compiling the guest list stage that number might grow too!
I think your pricing is fine, its whatever you are comfortable with and sounds reasonable for your area.
servings if she only needs 60 servings.
I usually add on an extra 10 slices or so, only because I know some people are NOT qualified to cut a cake. I like the dummy tier idea, but you might want to suggest doing the extra cake to the bride-to-be. When my brother got married there were only about 80 guests and they had a 5 tiered cake, the top for their 1st anniversary. They didn't mind paying extra so that everyone could at least enjoy the cake... it looked a lot better, too.
Jasmine
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%