Styrofoam Cake?

kennedee45

Has anyone heard of or used a styrofoam cake for the reception?  Is it really cheaper?  Does anyone know of any local bakeries that offer it?

andreab11

My soon to be sister-in-law told me about a wedding she went to that had a fake cake (not sure if it was made out of styrofoam) they used it to take pictures with and just bought sheet cakes to cut and serve to the guests. That's how it saves you money, sheet cakes are of course much cheaper than wedding cakes. I'm not sure if they made the fake cake on their own or not, but it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to do, I'm sure you could find what you needed at a craft store, ribbons, fake flowers, etc. to decorate it.

abbeylynne06

I don't really know too much about this, but here's what I've heard...

I don't really think that it's that much cheaper to use a styrofoam cake because most of what you end up paying for is the decorating, not the actual cake itself.  Cake itself is pretty inexpensive.  One way to save money would be just to have a smaller cake (like, not one that will feed all the guests) as your cutting cake and then sheet cakes in the back to make up the difference.  And, I'm not really sure how what you would do for a cake cutting with a cake like that, unless only some of the layers were styrofoam.

kennedee45

My friend did it for her wedding and I had no clue it was a styrofoam cake until she told me.  She said it cut down on her cost.  It may depend on the bakery also.  The top tier was a real cake for their pics and she had sheet cake in the back for her guest.  I like your idea of having a smaller cake and having the sheet cake in the back.  I guess I will have to check around to different bakeries and see what they offer.  It may be cheaper at some places and the same for a regular cake at others.  Thanks for the feedback.

kennedee45

BTW, love your pic abbey!

rcj2rcd

From what I've seen, you aren't really saving that much money - sheet cakes and a cutting fee, if you have one, still cost money. Plus, the fake cake needs to be decorated, which is where a lot of the cost comes from, esp if you want fondant, flowers, decorative details, etc.

But look around, get some quotes and compare.

sunkissed212

I used styrofoam for all but 1 layer of my wedding cake. It saved us about $250. We got our cake from The Home Bakery in Rochester.

Here's a pic. You can't tell it's styrofoam at all...even from up close. I looked really close when I got into the reception hall because I was curious to see if you'd be able to tell the difference between the real and styrofoam layers.

jdgardin

I know some girls will disagree with me, but we did cupcakes and save a lot of money.  We also did a small two tier wedding cake for cutting (one 4" layer and one 6" layer).  We choose five cupcake flavors, so lots of options for guests and had maybe 20 left over which were boxed for us to take home.  We didn't get the cupcakes from a big box store either, we used a gourmet cupcake shop in Midland, MI (so we had to travel) but it turned out beautifully and was way under budget.

MMRoberts11

If you go for styrofoam you will not be able to tell the difference just by looking at it.  They take the styrofoam and decorate it as if it were real cake.

abbeylynne06

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_michigan-detroit_styrofoam-cake?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local Wedding BoardsForum:88Discussion:1784eb5a-5cb2-45bc-b4fc-9d1566ad2af7Post:088f6ad6-a536-44fe-be71-9a6c45857a61">Re: Styrofoam Cake?</a>:
[QUOTE]BTW, love your pic abbey!
Posted by kennedee45[/QUOTE]

Thanks! : )

Milsey32

I had heard about this idea too - Thanks so much Kim for suggesting The Home Bakery because the ceremony and reception is in Rochester, so that'd be perfect! :-)