Serving just cake or do a dessert table?

Serving cake is surprisingly not always the more budget friendly option vs a sweets table because cake at a bakery can cost a lot per serving too! If you bought store bought cookies and laid them out on a table that might even actually be pretty cost efficient. Or other store bought desserts

I’m now considering either just a cake or just a dessert table. Not both. But who knows?? Still deciding. Our reception will be in April, with destination wedding in 27 days!! :-)

This is an hard decision i think if i went to a wedding Ill expect the cake lol

I think a cupcake tower with a cutting cake may be the most budget friendly option. Your caterer might not allow store bought food

I’ve been obsessing over this too!! My original idea was cake, cupcakes and cake pops for a super cute dessert display. But I’ve gone over budget in other (more important) areas so I think I’m gonna scale back to a simple 2 tier cake with a blingy cake stand and floral runners. Then a bunch of grocery store sheet cakes in the back. As long as there are tons of cake slices to set out I think it’s all good.

Our venue included the cake, and that's all we had. It was served with a chocolate covered strawberry. No one mentioned anything about there not being enough dessert.

My aunt gave me one piece of advice when I got engaged...If you do a cake, don’t do a dessert table too because you pay the extra money and almost none of it gets eaten. So we are doing just cake. I’d personally do either or, but not both.

Also forgot to mention I had a cake AND a separate dessert and the separate dessert definitely didn’t get eaten much.

We’re having a dessert table and either the smallest 2 tier cake we can get or just a 1 tier for cutting if possible. Our caterer offers cookies/brownies for $1.50 each or a mix of miniature cakes (cheesecake, chocolate ganache, and key lime) for $2.00 each. Those prices are much cheaper than getting a cake large enough to feed everyone, plus not everyone likes cake 🤷🏼‍♀️ Altogether we’ll probably spend $180-$200 on desserts (including our cake) which I think is reasonable!


I’d ask your caterer what kind of desserts they offer and what the cost is—it may end up being cheaper!

If you want cake, but want a dessert table, a great option is to do cupcakes! My fiance and I are doing one small traditional cake, and then 4 cupcake flavor options.

View Quoted Comment A small wedding cake for us and a dessert table for the guest is sounding more promising, thanks for the reply’s everyone ❤️

I am a SWEETS person! We decided to do a small cake for the pictures and sheets cakes to give to the guest. In the great scheme of things there were other places where I prefer to spend. Everything, not only sweets, gets so expensive really fast.

I say if a dessert table and cake is a priority them do it!! It's your big day!

We only had cake for desert and it was more than enough. No dessert table needed.