So we finally made the 2 hr drive up to our cake tasting at Jacques Pasteries. We fell in love! We picked out a 4 tier buttercream ( I like the look of fondant better, but it just wasn't nearly as tasty, and cheaper as well!) We chose vanilla with strawberry filling for the bottom layer, chocolate with chocolate cream for the second layer, vanilla with vanilla butercream for the third layer, and another vanilla and strawberry for the top layer. We are doing fresh floral on the top and sides, as well as crystal cake banding around each tier. The total came in under budget (I set aside $1000) for grand total of $850.00 for a cake that feeds 150 people (we only plan on having around 100-120 so plenty extra to take home!) That includes travel to Jaffrey, ($100) set up and we rented a nice cake stand($75.00) to go with it! I can't wait to eat it again. I know our guests will love it! I want it to be a main focus at the wedding!
I hope this may give some insight to other people for budget purposes. (With fondant instead of buttercream the total would have been - $1,100! A three tier cake that feeds 100 was going to be $650 for buttercream and $850 for fondant.)