How many cupcakes to have with the cake?

A three tiered cake is more than enough for 50 people, so I would skip the cupcakes unless you want to box them up and give them as favors.

I agree with PP. Cupcakes boxed up would make excellent favors if you're into that, but I don't think you'd need them with a 3 tiered cake!

I've been to weddings where they had cake and cupcakes and I believe the couple had enough for each person to have one. The baker I spoke to for our wedding, suggested at least 2 cupcakes per person (but we are only have a 2 tier cake and 170 est. guests).

Something to keep in mind is that some people will eat more than one cupcake, others won't eat any at all. So if you stick with the cupcake plan, I would supply cupcake boxes so guests can take some home if they want!

Also ask your baker what their thoughts are if you haven't already!

When I catered weddings and at most weddings I've been to, there's almost always lots of leftover cake and cupcakes esp. if you have a cocktail hour, full dinner and open bar. If you're doing a three tiered cake, I would not do cupcakes. If I did a small cake for just the bride and groom, I wouldn't do anymore than 1 cupcake per person, probably even slightly less. People always say "you can box them up and take them home," but so often, everything is so busy, people forget to actually take the cupcake home. I can't tell you how often we threw huge portions of cake away when I used to work for a catering company or we sent the B&G home with dozens of cupcakes. How many leftover cupcakes can you realistically eat before they spoil? Contrary to popular belief, it's also difficult to donate most leftovers to any sort of shelter, food bank, etc. pre-pandemic, let alone right now with additional protocols. Finally, during the pandemic, I think people may be reluctant to take home a cupcake that has been sitting out for awhile.

I agree with others who say you probably won't need the cupcakes. We had a two tiered cake for our 41 person wedding, and we had probably half of it left over.

One thing to consider is you sometimes can get a cake cheaper if it's two tiers instead of three because three is sometimes considered the cutoff for a "wedding" cake...I know that's how ours is. Often the big cakes you see in pictures are actually Styrofoam with a layer for cutting. We are doing a two-tiered cake and sheet cakes.

The tiers of daughter's cake were 6" 10" and 12", and it was supposed to feed 120 people. They had about 100 guests and we brought a LOT of cake home.... As you can see, it didn't look like a big cake.

We wanted a variety, so we did a smaller cake (2 tiers) and a full dessert bar. We did 20 Oreo shooters, 20 banana pudding shooters, 20 mini cheesecakes, 36 donuts, and 50 cookies in addition to our 2 tier cake. We had 100 guests.

We had a similar dilemma at our wedding and decided to go for a smaller wedding cake and a variety of flavored cupcakes for guests to take home. We went with a naked cake with lemon frosting and berry puree (featured in this recipe ) and it was a massive hit! Not a crumb left over afterwards. There were plenty of cupcakes though, so maybe it's a good idea to skip them.