Cake, cupcakes, pastries??

Any time it'a a wedding even the prices for pastries are inflated as well. Walmart, Sams and especially Publix wedding cakes are really good and priced low, You can get a three tier cake from walmart for about $150 and Publix about $400

The price of the cake oftentimes depends on the flavor, design, and how many people you need to feed. So if you do a very simple cake without the fondant and intricate designs and just purchase a nice cake topper from websites like Etsy you can probably get a better price.

Other options are:

Do a small cake for show and then have the bakery make a sheet cake that will actually feed the amount of people you need. Leave the sheet cake in the back and then cut the sheet cake not necessarily the cake that's for show.

Pies...people love pies and you can legitimately purchase them at the store for cheap and people will be very happy

As someone already mentioned...donuts! Buy a really nice cake stand and stack the donuts on top of each other to create a tower of donuts. You can do the same with oreos too.

Anything that's smaller and more time consuming to decorate like cupcakes can be pricey. It all depends on the bakery. So I wouldn't assume that cupcakes will save you money unless you buy them in bulk from a grocery store.

We're getting apple cider donuts from a local orchard/u-pick. I think they'll be lovely for our fall wedding and FH and I went apple picking on our first trip together. Plus, um, they're super yummy. Our venue has one of those donut peg wall displays, so it was an easy decision.

We'll also have a small cutting cake.

We are getting a one tier cake in the flavor we knew we wanted. We are also getting cupcakes in that flavor as well as three other flavors we loved from the bakery. Our cost for 4 dozen cupcakes and the cake is less than $200. We also plan to get brownies, lemon bars, and some other kind of cookie bar from Costco to put out for those that might not like cake. Wedding cake prices are ridiculous and I just want to make sure our guests are well fed without breaking the budget.

We're also doing a 1-2 tier small cake for the cutting and for the wedding party to enjoy, then a few different flavor of cupcakes for the guests and all putting it on a display so it looks like a big cake from far away! It's only going to cost us less than $500 which is great for us!

We're thinking a small cake and then an assortment of pies.

It was cheaper for us to do a dessert table with a small cutting cake vs. traditional cake. Our table had cupcakes, cookies, and brownies.

We are thinking of doing donuts from Duck Donuts instead of a cake. Neither of us is a huge fan of cake and it's soooo expensive. It ends up being about a quarter of the price for us to do something different (and that we actually like).

Cupcakes are a good option. Cookies are also a nice dessert. I like the idea of having a small round cake to cut, then using sheet cake to feed your guests.