I'm making a wedding cake for a friend and they will only be serving it at the midnight buffet. They have a separate dessert being served after dinner.

How large should I make the cake? I was planning on having two 10" rounds (Wilton says 38 servings each - total of 76) for 100 guests. Is that enough? I don't mind if there is extra, but would hate to run out.

My opinion is to have enough to serve the number of guest you think will attend. There is a debate between my friend and myself over the serving chart. I like Earlene's which is different from Wilton. So we split the difference.

tgies, I think you're reading the W chart incorrectly. A 4" tall tier (2 layers) serves 38. Unless you were planning on making two, 2 layer 10" cakes.

That is correct. I plan on making two separate 10" cakes, each one with three 1" layers of cake (so with buttercream and fondant each will be approx. 3.5-4" tall).

Do you think that is enough?

The cake itself is going to be a bit strange. My friend has odd cake toppers. The man in kneeling on the top tier with his hand reaching out and the woman is standing on the top of the tier below reaching up to him, like he is going to pull her up onto the top.

The woman is 5 1/2" tall, so the top tier has to be 6" tall, and the bottom of her dress is 2" wide so the top tier and the tier she is standing on have to have a 4" difference.

So, I was planning on making a 6" top tier 6" tall, and the bottom would be two separate 10" round cakes, each 4" tall with a cake board separating them for cutting later and fondant covering it all, so that it looks like one 8" tall cake.

Does that sound really odd??

Depends entirely on how many people are there. You have 76 servings. Are there going to be 76 people in attendance at midnight?

Tgies, you stated that there will be approx. 100 ppl attending. So, just to be safe on servings (if cut the wilton way), I would make 2 - 12" rounds and that will be 112 slices. HTH

I have no idea how many people intend to stay until midnight and how many of them want to eat cake.

I could also do a 12" 10" and 6" top. That would give me 94 servings...but is that an odd shape? The difference between the tiers would be different.

If I do two 12" cakes the difference between the top 6" round and bottom 12" round would be too much no?

I think the 12, 10 and 6 would be fine. Or you could move the cakes to the back (not centered on top of each other) to give you the room you need to put the cake topper on 2 layers.

I'm sorry, you didn't indicate in your inital post about doing a tiered cake. Yes the 12" 10 and 6". Will be fine and should serve the guest well. The spaces in btw the cakes wb fine.

Okay, I think I know what I am going to do. I am going to make the cake a 10" base (two cakes on top of one another) and then a 6" top tier. Decorate it the way I was originally intending. And then I'll make a separate 8" cake decorated the same way, and bring it out when they cut them. That way I'll have exactly 100 servings.

Thanks for all your help!! I'll post pics once it's done (The wedding is on the 30th of this month).

I ended up going with a 12", 10" and 6" and had waaaay more cake than necessary. Although, more is always better than not enough