Fake Cake?

SafetyBunny

My mother and i make cakes for fun and for profit. She and I made my older sister's wedding cake and we have made several more wedding cakes since then. My wedding is next October and my mother is determined to enjoy this wedding instead of working on a cake all day long. The problem is that i DO NOT want another cake designer making my wedding cake. Not to mention, spending $1000 on a cake for 500 people is out of the question. Here's my solution: A fake cake. Making a 5 tier cake where only the middle tier is actually made of edible cake for cutting. After the cake cutting, the pretend cake is taken to the back and sheet cake is served without anyone being the wiser. This way i can help make and design my own wedding cake without spending a fortune. My future MIL is very old-fashioned and seems really opposed to the idea. What do y'all think? Fake cake? Faux-pas?

AmandaO14

I am totally a fan, but I am a fan of doing stuff on the cheap!  Just make sure its a really good sheet cake

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

I think that sounds like a great idea.

mbcdefg

I would personally rather make one small cake for you and FI to cut, then have the sheet cake. Or maybe an assortment of desserts. I would just be afraid of something happening to the fake cake where everyone realizes it's fake ... the icing slides off, or the material os obviously fake, or it falls over, etc. I would never think twice about a couple having a small cake, but I think an obviously fake cake could really bring down the classiness of an otherwise nice wedding.

amkdp101

We hired a baker and she actually recommended "kitchen cakes". You have a smaller or fake cake for show and then they make sheet cakes that are kept in the kitchen. After you cut the cake they wheel it to the back and cut the sheet cakes. No one is the wiser and you get the cake you want and save $$$$!

aerinpegadrak

Apparently it's common in Japan to have a large Western style wedding cake made entirely of styrofoam, with a slot for the knife for the "cake cutting."  So you're not coming totally out of left field.Speaking solely from my expertise as an "Amazing Wedding Cakes" addict, dummy cakes are very common (they're what the bakers keep in their shops as samples), but covering them with fondant can be difficult because there's no moisture in the styrofoam.  You may want to do small-scale test runs to make sure you've got the technique down before starting on the main cake.

SafetyBunny

Thanks guys! My mom and i do the big "ace of cakes" fondant cakes. We just do it out of the house and if we did the fake cake, it would allow us to start some time in advance. I think i may just have to convince my MIL that this is something im not willing to change. We have the styrofoam pieces already that we use for stacking and designing, so it would just be a matter of sitting down and figuring it out. Thanks again y'all! I feel so much better about my decision. I was so afraid it would just make me look cheap, but since FI and i are paying for the majority of the wedding ourselves i think this is really going to be the best route to take.

aerinpegadrak

Just occurred to me: The fancy, gorgeous wedding cakes at bridal shows and in all the bridal magazines are almost all dummy cakes.  So it doesn't necessarily look cheap at all.

Leah&Christian09

I've heard of this before. It seems to work well for people. Unless your FMIL is paying for the cake, how you do it is really none of her business.

saraschneider

i dont think it is a bad idea at all, however i would be afraid of the guests noticing that the cake is not real, and they might be disappointed..? i would have an assortment of desserts maybe, or im sure there is a cake artist that wouldnt cost $1000

dsouldiva

I would do the fake cake and tell the FMIL she is right, you will go for a complete cake, How will she ever know the difference?

tracy_k

Just want to point out that a fake cake is unlikely to save you much $$, unless you're doing it yourself like the OP. The majority of the cost of a wedding cake is in the decoration, and decorating a fake cake in an elaborate manner is no less challenging than decorating a real cake.Personally I don't like the idea of a fake cake, I'd probably just go with a smaller (two or three tier) real cake, ditch the old "save the top tier for our anniversary" idea (year-old cake? yuck!!) and serve it as well, and supplement with sheet cake in the kitchen.

julesmarie1030

i think it's a great idea, we are doing it too! It is actually very common, you can have the sheet cake made with the same flavors you would have done the big cake out of so it will taste the same. no one will know, and even if they did i think it's a common enough practice that they wouldn't care.

SafetyBunny

This is great, guys! Hopefully this will help some other DIY-ers and budget-wise brides alike. We are doing the cake ourselves and we make our own icing and fondant (yumm), so it will be *significantly* cheaper than an actual cake decorated by someone else. I was really not so opposed to having one of the most-used cake designers around here (also the most-used caterer, who my FMIL insisted upon. shes's paying, im not arguing.) do the cake until i heard horror stories about a woman who ordered three cakes from there...all of which were freezer burned! Plus, the reception venue has rather large ceilings which means that a small or average sized cake is going to be absolutely dwarfed by the large surroundings.