Ladies you dont have to spend all that money on wedding cakes. I took my inpiration pic to the local grocery store (publix). My cake was 600.00 but I paid 150.00 for a two tier and paid 20.00 for my sheet cake to feed 100 people.

Inspiration and my cake:

thanks so much for that :) what a great deal, so beautiful.

Also, you if you get "fake" layers than the price decreases considerably.  They look the same on the outside though they make the cake much cheaper and you can just buy a sheet cake to feed your guests.  Since we are having a dessert buffet, our cake will be mostly fake except the piece to cut and feed each other plus one to keep.  Most of our friends aren't cake people anyway.  LOL

Your cake looks great! Thanks for the tip. Will definitely keep it in mind when I start pricing cakes.

Yeah, I found a grocery store that charges a flat rate of $1.75 a slice.  The cake itself wasn't great but the buttercream frosting was awesome.  I don't know what Walmart charges (I think it's less, believe it or not) but I've heard their cake actually tastes great.

My recommendation, though, is to ask around.  I found a baker through a friend of a friend - she just bakes from her home, part time, and doesn't advertise or anything so I wouldn't have found her otherwise.  But I am getting a 4-tier fondant cake with two different kinds of filling for $135 - she charges a flat rate of $2.25/slice no matter what kind of cake it is or what she puts on it.  And it tastes awesome!  I don't even like white cake (that was one of FI's two requests) and I couldn't get enough of the sample cake she made us.

I know Safeway up here has really good cakes and they're really tasty and that expensive.