I have a bride who wants a cake that is 7 tiers but only needs it to feed 200. She is fine with tiers of "fake cake" but how many should I make real cake?

Next question is what should I charge for this?

She wants chocolate, marble and white cake all BC filled and iced. The decoration on the tiers will be hearts, lacework and paw prints(Penn State) and on each tier she wants 2 large paw prints for the top she wants 2 lion heads(Penn State logo)..... I have to deliver it 120 miles away.....

The decorator she had canceled on her. The picture attached is what the other decorator designed. I have never done anything this large before.

I've been reading the forums for a while and just recently decided to sign up. This is my 1st post.

Wow--totally out of my league but here is a bump.

I would do every other one fake...so three in total...you would have to assemble the cake on site( make sure to take some fondant and royal icing to fix breakage)...this is a huge order!!! three to four real tiers..should be enough... I would charge a minimum..of $500 plus delivery...good luck with your cake!!

( make sure to take some fondant and royal icing to fix breakage).

there is no fondant except for the paw prints and lion heads.

Hmmm...not sure that I can be of much help, but here goes...

First of all, I didn't see an attached pic. Maybe I missed it???

You might want to do some investigating and determine what other bakers charge per serving in your area. That will give you an idea of what to charge. Most likely somewhere between $2.50-3.50 per serving. Please don't undercut your local bakers .

First of all, you should charge her based on the # of cake servings you'll be providing, not the # of ppl she's expecting. Also, you need to consider the dummy layers when charging her. Although you won't be baking and filling them, you'll still be buying and decorating them. So maybe charge a slightly discounted rate for those tiers?

Regarding the delivery, whew...that's a loooong way to have to deliver a cake. I'm not sure what other posters will say, but I'd charge a FAT delivery fee!! You're basically giving up an ENTIRE day to deliver, set up, and drive back.

If you look on Wilton's site, their wedding cake serving chart will help you determine how many tiers of "real" cake you need, and how many dummies you'll need. Regardless, please post a pic of the finished product!! HTH

hopefully the picture will show now...

The words are plaques she had made up. In order for these to fit the cakes will have to be 16" and 18" for those to tiers.

I am looking at 20", 18", 16", 14", 12", 10" and 8" top

I was thinking of doing the bottom 3 tiers fake?

I'm betting there is more to the story of the other decorator "cancelling" on her. But that's neither here nor there. And what are these "plaques" made out of? They will be placed directly against the BC? Are they varnished, painted, or coated in any paint substance?

Make sure you charge the same for the fake tiers, or not very much less. They are just as work to decorate, and dummies aren't exactly priced to be giving away.

With the 14, 12 and 10, you are already at 220 real servings...the 8 will put you even further over.

http://www.wilton.com/cakes/making-cakes/baking-wedding-cake-2-inch-pans.cfm

I agree w/Jamie; make the 3 largest tiers styro/fake. You are looking at a price of about $1,000-$1500! (220 serves at $3.50 ea and that doesn't include charging for the styro!)
Don't know your skill level but to me the hardest part is going to be the topper/lion heads. Have you thought of making them flat - maybe frosting sheet pix glued to fondant (&/or gumpaste) plaques to stand upright on the top?
Cornelli & squiggles should be easy. Paw prints aren't too bad...

Nothing says you MUST duplicate the pix exactly......do what you can. You don't say when this cake is due/how much time you have to plan it.
Do be sure to charge for delivery .....that's a LONG ride!.
I can see this cake being completely put together for delivery OR do the fake part separate, then add the 'real' cake on site.

Have you laid this design out with your cake pans to see if it works in those sizes?

I don't know for sure, but I remember when I had to angle square cakes once and they didn't fit the way I thought they would when there was only a 2" difference in the pan sizes.

I could be wrong, but you might want to check it with your pans first and see how it looks.

Also, that's a very, very long distance to drive a wedding cake. I don't know how many cakes you have delivered but please take that into consideration as well and please don't be afraid to charge accordingly.

Good luck!

The cake is due on August 15, 2009

I worked up a price of just under $700...What do you think?

For the cake, fake cakes and delivery.

I would also do the bottom tiers as the fake tiers.
- easier to work with than the little styro cakes
- adds stability as they make a GREAT cake base.
- 3 fakes stacked up are SO much easier to carry than 3 LARGE real cakes.
- no doweling in the bottom three tiers

You NEED to charge more than 700$ With supplies an transportation of the monster I am worried that you may even lose money here. Please take into account your time, electricity costs, gas etc etc etc. Remember, even if the layers of "cake" aren't real, you need to decorate them like real cake. Same time, same supplies, plus the dummies will cost $$ as well.
A big cake comes with a big pice tag...

Hello....
I would kindly suggest that you get a final head count from the bride no later than two weeks before the wedding. From that count, you would know how many real cakes you would need. From there, you would add how ever many dummy cakes you need to finish making it a 7 tier cake.
I just did a cake for 100 guest. That ended up being 10-8-6" two layer cakes. From there, I added a 14" and a 12" dummy cake to make it all look bigger. I may have misunderstood, but I don't know how you can get the number of servings you would supply, without knowing how many guest will be there. Yes, people tend to show that didn't RSVP, but somewhere along the road, you have to get a count from the bride, and go with that. HTH!

Debi Does Data comin' at 'cha!!

8/10/12/14 serves 196 per the wilton wedding chart. Times (let's say) $3.00 serving = $588 (my rate is $3.50/serving so my price would be $686.)

16/18/20 rounds serve 100/127/157 (used this source: http://www.decoratingstudio.com/Wedding_Bridal/index.html for these larger cakes that are not on my Wilton chart) = 384 servings.

384 x $3/serving = $1152. I give 20% discount on styro's so at 80% the price would be $922. (My price would be 384 servings x $3.50 x 80% = $1075)

Just because it's a fake cake, doesn't mean you do the SAME decorating, using the SAME amount of icing and the SAME amount of gas to deliver it .... all for fake money. It's a REAL expense and you should get REAL money for it.

$588 + $922 = $1509.

Delivery ... 120 miles one way = 240 miles round trip (if you had to pay an employee to deliver this cake, the employee would be on the clock until they returned to your facility. They don't clock out when they remove the cake from the van.) 240 miles times my rate of $1.25/mile = $300 delivery fee.

$1509 + $300 = $1809 .... assuming at just $3/serving

This does not include any fondant work so I'd say this is easily a $2000 cake.

If she wants the bells and whistles (a 7 tier cake when she only needs a 3 tier or a 4 tier) then she PAYS for the bells and whistles.

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btw, if you haven't been adding it up, my total price would have been $2063 before fondant charges, which since they are accents, I'd add $200 for a cake this size.

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and .... I TOTALLY agree with dkelly. make sure the bride KNOWS the cakes will overlap. Give her a visual ... and a form to sign saying she knows it will look like that.

I must agree with Debi here....your price is FARtoo low!! Regardless of what the average price is inyour area, your price barely covers it! If someone wants to order a 7 tier cake that will feed nearly 5 times the number of guests they are expecting...they are doing it for the visual appeal. That comes with a big price tag!!! Not to mention, I agree that the bride may not like what those tiers will look like when they are stacked at those sizes. Definitely make that clear to her and get it in writing because just saying they will overlap does not explain just how odd that can end up looking when such small size differences are offset like that. I wish you the best of luck but you should get paid for this cake!!!

Have you considered that maybe she cancelled her other order when she found out the price? Just a thought...