Hi- So my customer has a small budget for the wedding cake but the venue is large and amazing!! I tried to tell her to get a larger cake bc a small cake might get lost in a large venue but her budget wouldn't allow it.  She has 240 people but only wants a 3 tiered cake for 70 plus sheet cakes for 100ppl.  She says that it is not a sit down service so people can just get cake if they want. 

I would really want her to get a larger cake or a cake with styrofoam tiers.  The thing is she has fresh flowers to put on the cake.  How do you put fresh flowers on styrofoam tiers? 

Also when you do sheet cakes to be cut in the kitchen do you make it two layers? 

For the flowers on Styrofoam, you do as for real cakes, use flower spikes. See attached picture

The usually come in packages of six.

As for the extra sheet cakes, you do the same as the tiered cake (including type of cake and icing.) Is your tiered cake two layers? yes? Then your sheet cake must be two layers. The point is that people must see only one tipe of setting. It doesn't look good to have some servings with one layers and others with two.

Good luck to you!

I agree with Regina. In order to look the similar enough, kitchen cakes are only slightly less expensive because they miss the most ornate decoration of the main cake. But the rest is still needed to balance. Otherwise you get a slab looking cake while some folks get the beautiful cutting cake slice.  I always like what one of the Professionals on here used to ask their brides, "How will you decide who gets a pretty cake slice and who doesn't as your guests will know the difference."  It is like dummy tiers, brides think they are cheaper then actual cake. But  really they are about the same work and sometimes more work for the cake artist. So they are rarely cheap enough to be effective replacement for real cake. This may depend on decoration of course. Personally, my baking costs are higher than some since I bake from scratch, and do all natural without preservatives or anything artificial.  So my business model has my price per serving including all buttercream decorations. So my brides always do full cake options, rather than cutting cakes and kitchen cakes.I will do either, but so far, not one bride decided to have a small cutting cake with kitchen cakes. 

My cakes are usually 4 layers and around 5" tall.  So i'm guessing they will cut the two in half for servings? So I should do a sheet cake that is two layers? 

Makes sense. I would double check with the customer to be sure.... she is the boss after all!

Ah, What is your servings based upon?  What you note about 4 layers and 5" is my single serving size for all cakes.  So part of that is driven by how you charge and what size your per serving is based upon.  For instance, my 4" round, which has 4 layers and is 5" high serves 6 (and I price on that serving price. ) I hope this helps.