This article can be seen in entirety here, written by Myra Jean of Myra Jean's Cakes in Tallahassee, FL. Article is reprinted here with permission from Myra Jean. (Thanks Myra Jean!)
Ordering a
wedding cake is something that requires a good deal of thought about specific
areas of the wedding. You need to know the following things about your
wedding when planning how big a cake you need to order.
All of the above things play into how big your wedding cake should be. One
area where a lot of confusion comes into play is "invitations".
I have often had brides tell me they are sending out, for instance, "200
invitations". Then when I ask them if that is "200 invited
guests" or "200 invitations" they realize that 200
invitations could be as many as 400 guests if everyone brings a companion with
them. So be sure you think about that question carefully when deciding how
many people you are planning for. Since you should actually order your
cake at least 3-6 months in advance at most bakeries, you usually have to play a
guessing game by going down you list of guests and guessing at whether they may
or may not come to get an approximate count of how many people to plan for.
You will really need this count for your whole wedding planning and it will
NEVER be accurate but it is helpful in planning. Overall you should
usually plan about 1/2-2/3 of your guest list will probably come, sometimes as
much as 3/4 if a lot of them are local people.
If you are planning a big, full meal you shouldn't need quite as big a cake,
unless they will actually be slicing the cake and serving it directly to the
guests as dessert, in that case you should plan enough cake for each guest you
expect to attend. If you are planning only to serve cake and punch at your
reception, this is another time when you will want to be sure you have enough
cake for all you expect to attend. If you are serving a large buffet or
serving alcohol this is when you could possibly get by with a smaller
wedding cake.
Time of day is another factor that enters into your equation. Afternoon
weddings may not need as much cake as evening ones but the food and alcohol are
bigger factors.
If you are having a groom's cake and it is of a larger size you also may be able
to get by with a smaller wedding cake, also if you are serving a number of other
sweets. Some people will have a piece of each but some people may not have
any cake, especially if they are diabetic or drinking alcohol.
Groom's cakes vary a lot in our area in what they are and how big they are.
Usually I will add the two together and see how many they will serve in total.
You can subtract some from this amount, especially if you are also serving a big
meal as well as alcohol.
A lot depends on the "look" you want for your wedding cake. Very
often we have brides come in with a pre-set idea of the cake they want.
Sometimes they come in with a picture in hand that they found in a bridal
magazine or elsewhere on the internet. If this picture has a particular
look but the brides wedding is considerably smaller than the wedding cake in the
picture would serve we may have to make adjustments. We can handle this in
two ways. Depending on the the brides budget, we can either make the cake
to the size it needs to be to achieve the desired look, in which case there may
be a lot of cake left over to be parceled out to departing guests or a lot
leftover in the freezer. OR
we can make a part of the cake in "dummy" cakes so that you don't end
up with more left over cake than you can deal with. We have done this on a
number of occasions when the bride wanted a HUGE cake for a modest sized
wedding. On several occasions the place where the wedding was being held
was such a large imposing structure that an average sized wedding cake would
have looked diminutive. We made the entire bottom part of the cake out of
large dummies and only the upper tiers were real cake. When we do this the
icing on the entire cake, including the dummies was the same so guests had no
idea there were even dummies involved. The bride was happy and they had
the right amount of cake. There is a charge for doing this but it is
considerably less than having all real cake.
Putting
the cakes on Fountains or other stands also achieves the affect of making a
small wedding cake look bigger. The cake in this paragraph is a very good
example of that. It actually has both a fountain and an unusual cake stand
as well as sitting within an arch. It was actually only a cake for about
100 people but because of the setting used as well as having a fountain as part
of the set-up it ended up looking much more impressive.
Serving the cake early enough in the reception so that it is there for guests
who might leave a bit early is more likely to insure all of it is eaten.
We once did a wedding cake for a wedding where 400 guests showed up at the
church. The wedding cake was big enough for 300 people but the couple took
so long getting pictures done and in their receiving line before cutting the
cake that a lot of the guests left before the cake was served and they ended up
with a LOT of cake leftover. We suggest cutting the cake as soon as the
main meal has been served. Be sure there are always cut slices available
to the guests before they start to leave and you are less likely to end up with
a lot of extra cake.
At our bakery we Do SUGGEST APPOINTMENTS for ordering wedding cakes. We do recommend ordering your wedding cake at least 3-6 months in advance and we have even taken orders a year and sometimes more in advance. Once you have an idea of the number of servings you need and a firm date, the wedding cake is one thing you can plan and have taken care of early. Some dates do book up quickly, especially in the spring. We only take on as many orders as we feel we can do a good job at. Don't let your wedding be the one we have to turn down.................plan ahead!