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I happened about "fake layers" on one website, they cost 80% of the real price of a layer of cake.
One way to lower prices, is purchase a "flat" cake for quests. Or else, myself I'm looking at doing cupcakes instead of a cake. Since a lot of people don't have time to eat a cake or are they hungry (b/c you just fed them hors-de-orves, salad and a main meal..and sometimes a seperate dessert), they don't often have room for other food.
Yep! It's what my FSIL is doing! She has to do it for reasons other than money (she's allergic to wheat gluten, so the stuff she can actually eat is expensive and honestly not that tasty), but it's saving her a lot of money anyway. Just do like you said, and have styrofoam or something like that for the cake, except the part you'll cut, and sheet cake for the guests. Saves a ton.
I'm doing a normal cake for about half the guests, and cupcakes for the other half. We're inviting a zillion kids, so they'll like it, and it gives them more choice, and it's cute!
To save money, I know a lot of brides who had a small cake and then sheet cakes for the guests.
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thanks ladies! i really like the half sheet cake, half cupcakes idea!! i've always thought cupcakes look really cute in reception pics! great feedback, thanks :)
I'm having a "fake cake" , my top layers of my cake are foam covered in royal icing , I'm not fond of fondant and like the "homemade" look. We made the topper this past weekend , this will stand on a 16inch round. and yes it is a topsy turvy. We did use silk flowers , but I'm very happy with the end result. The bakers we spoke to wanted almost $1000 !!! insane! my FMIL made the little bees , it's a running joke with my FI and I as both our names start with B .The wings have our names on them. 
A little cheesy but cute none the less.
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Darn , too big . well if anyone wants to see pics pm me. Again it was fairly easy to do if you are at all crafty.
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We aren't having fake layers in our cake, although I have heard of that before. However, since our guest list seems to keep growing, we ordered our cake to serve one amount, and then our baker will make sheet cake to cover anything over that amount.
I was entertaining the idea of having a fake cake at one point to save on costs. After much deliberation I decided to have multiple smaller cakes at the venue for a display. We're having a non-formal, vintagy type celebration.
I have assigned my girls to hunt down multiple cake stands at various thrift stores for the display. We'll have various tortes and pies as well as a homemade wedding cake.
My mother baked her own wedding cake, as well as my grandmother's 3 tiered beast of a cake for her encore wedding. She's going to help me decorate it and put it together. It will save us a lot of money, plus it'll hopefully be a fun mother-daughter bonding thing before the big day. :)
Check with your baker (if you have one yet, or as you interview them) - I asked about fake layers with a sheet cake in the back and my baker said either way, it would cost the same. We ended up going with a big layer cake and it was delicious!!! It was spice cake with apple filling - I wish I had some now!
Krissybee- I had considered this option; however, when I went to my baker, they actually charged the same price whether it was a sheet cake or a tiered cake! So tracking down a fake cake would have cost more money than just having a regular 3 tiered cake!
I actually got my cake at a local, small chain, grocery store for $2 a slice. Like you it was a low priority and I wasn't willing to spend a lot on it. Delivered (to my rural location) and including a 2nd dessert for my gluten-intolerant relatives the cake was around $200. And we got lots of compliments on the appearance and taste.
Just something to keep in mind- if it's a low priority, a grocery store bakery may work for you.
Here's a pic:
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rosychicklet, your cake was beautiful!! wow! i had no idea the cost of a "fake" cake and real cake would be the same. i've just started researching bakers but had always assumed it had to be less expensive if it wasn't edible! GREAT FEEDBACK! thanks!
My DH was adamant about having his all time favourite cake for our wedding, but the quote we received from the bakery for a tiered cake was beyond our budget. We instead ordered the bakery's non-wedding sheet cake for 1/4 the cost, and I made a fake cake to display (and fake cut, lol) out front.
Our bottom of 5 tiers will be styrofoam. She actually told us that the size of our largest tier is pretty close to how big she says will reliably set well anyway. We're having two smaller cakes (she only does rounds) in back for extra servings also. One of the florists we talked to also mentioned that he thought having cakes in the back was better b/c the caterers often butchers the cake when they take apart the tiers to cut and serve them. In our case the fake tier is significantly cheaper (I can't recall by how much exactly b/c I know the styrofoam tier is $25 but I can't recall how many slices would have been in the tier its replacing). And the rounds are charged at $2/slice instead of $4.5/slice so they are much cheaper as well.
I think the styrofoam option is fairly common. The only warning the cakemaker gave us was to make sure we tell someone like the coordinator which tier is fake so they can remind us to cut above. It can be pretty comical if the couple forgets in all the excitement.
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Sometimes cupcakes are just as expensive, if not more than a regular cake.
If you want to save costs, why not get a small 1 or 2 tiered cake, and have an additional sheet cake in the kitchen for guests.
We did ice cream cake - so we couldn't have it on display (which was cheap by the way $1 slice). My mom made a fake cake - covered boxes with icing... She's talented like that... It worked out pretty well - she just cut out a small section of the box and stuck angel food cake in there.
I've been to 2 weddings where they had fake cakes. I only knew because the bride/groom told me, otherwise, I would have never guessed. They looked real - and they sorta are, it's 3 tiers of styrofoam with real icing covering them so from the outside, it is a real cake. I think it only costed them about $150. And you can have a slab cake from a grocery store or Sam's (costco if you are in Canada) in the back and have the server cut that up and serve it.
Fake cake layers are often as expensive as a real cake, the reasoning is the ingredients for making a cake are cheap, the expensive and time consuming part of the cake is the icing. Most of the time there are hand details which are very time consuming and since you aren't saving any time by adding fake layers you don't save any money!
A much better option is to downsize your cake and do sheet cake (also known as mothers cakes in the south) to keep in the back. No one will ever know the difference ;)
Good Luck!
@ MissStellar: Really? I thought USA = Sam's Club and Canada = Costco.
more great feedback! thanks bees! good point SpaceC06!!
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@june_bride: CostCo is actually based in Kirkland, WA, near Seattle, so it's an American company. Sam's Club is owned by Wal-Mart. Everywhere I've lived in the US CostCo is more common than Sam's, though there are both where I am now. I think it probably has to something to do with proximity to Arkansas (where walmart is based). But the two are very different companies...
I actually considered this, and looked into it with a local cake decorator. They told me the price quote is almost the same as a real cake. Talk about catching me off guard!! Who would've thought??
She then explained that what we're really paying for is the time spent decorating it. Makes sense.
Try other avenues, other than "fake cakes." Think about cupcakes, or even small cakes at each table. Some do these on cake stands, and actually act as the centerpiece. Google it, you'll find some great pics!
I saw that on a newscast!
We're doing four flavored layer cakes from a bakery I'm quite fond of (for a 100-person wedding) at $60 each instead of one big cake. This way we'll save some money and have some variety at the same time!
As an encore bride, having a good tasting cake was more important to us than the fancy layers. We are getting our cake from the Publix bakery (yep, a grocery store bakery cake!) but if anyone has had Publix cake, you know they are terrific and taste much better than many from fancy bakeries. We are getting a full sheet cake called Raspberry Elegance-moist pound cake with raspberry filling, cream cheese frosting with a pearlized dusting, our initials on the top inside of an intricate design. We are also doing mini cupcakes (chocolate on chocolate) for the grooms cake set on stacked glass serving pieces. Total cake bill....hold on now...$160. TOTAL!
wow!!! $160!! thats awesome, and sounds delicious liztwinz!
Here's my plan as of right now: I'm going to have a three-tiered cake, but the bottom layer will be "fake," the middle layer is where my hubby-to-be and I will cut from and eat, as well as our wedding party, and then the top tier we'll save for our 1-year anniversary. Then we're going to serve our guests cupcakes. I've always wanted cupcakes at my wedding, but was sad I couldn't have the traditional cake, so now I'll get the both of best worlds!
Miss Deviled Egg is doing one http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/02/12/bake-your-own-wedding-cake/
good luck and oh my gah I love Publix cake (and the guava and cheese pastries)!!
Here's the cake we're going to have for our July wedding!! The picture is 4 teired but we will be having a 5 teired cake...2 of which will be faux teirs!! Not sure which ones yet though....
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daisywu your cake is gorgeous!! i love that green ribbon and "dotted" top tier!!!!
On a related question, how many of you are planning on saving your top tier? It turns out my cakemaker includes a boxed mini-cake for your first anniversary separately. She says that they don't preserve well after they've been sitting out. And, for my sister's wedding the caterer actually threw the top tier away!! The place pretty much mostly does weddings so I can't believe they did that. But they also left out a special Indian dessert (my Dad's favorite) that my uncle had brought in his luggage and it ended up getting spoiled before the reception (this is after each of my parents had given them explicit instructions that it needed to be refrigerated until right before serving) so I dunno...
I actually took a wedding cake decorating class, and my sister put my newly learned skills to use for her wedding.
I ended up making her a fake cake, but having the top tier a real cake so they could do the cake cutting. No one could tell that it was a dummy cake, unless they were told. She ended up saving a lot of money!!!
We served the guests strawberry shortcake - it was a hit!! No one really likes fondant anyways, and it was the middle of summer so it was refreshing.
Cake styrofoam dummies should be available at your local bakery specialty store.
@ daisywu - I suggest that the two bottom tiers of your cake be the fake tiers, only because a real cake may not be strong enough to hold up your fake tiers.
This is the cake I made for my sisters wedding...
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I realize this post is a month old but we did a fake cake for a friends shower and it turned out amazing! Instead of styrofoam we used hat boxes. The different sizes and then wrapped them in tissue paper and put the icing on the tissue paper. It went on smooth (easier than a real cake!). She was having a beach wedding do we did starfish around the larger base and then a different shell for each of the other two tiers. We used it as the center piece of the food table and no one ever would have known unless we told.
Will try and upload pics soon.
I know some of you are trying to decide which layers to have fake and which ones to do real. Remember that they will remove that top tier and work their way down when they are cutting so the base could easily be fake. I worked wedding receptions for YEARS and 9 times out of 10 there is a LOT of cake leftover so my advice is to cut your number way down. Many people don't eat cake and several guests will have already left by the time you cut the cake so don't base your number off the number you are inviting!
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The wedding cake is very low on my "must have" list and frankly i'd rather have beautiful linens than a gourmet cake and to save money I found a bunch of websites for "fake cakes". Boxes or foam "cakes" covered with fondant and then a real piece of cake somewhere for the cake cutting. Has anyone else even considered this, or have done this? any thoughts about it?