Wedding cake alternatives?

For our upcoming reception, we ordered a small 6 inch cake and about 7 dozen mini cupcakes for our guests to have. The smaller cake is for cake cutting purposes. We plan to also have donuts and maybe cookies as dessert options as well. But I was with you, I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a cake.

One of my friends did a dummy cake and their venue passed out sheet cake from the back - the guests had no idea that it wasn't the same cake! The "dummy cake" was more so for show & pictures, but it really was like cardboard or something I believe?

You can get a large sheet cake from a bakery or something and just serve that, or do other desserts like cookies, cupcakes, donuts or pie. I wouldn't pay for a dummy cake, save your money - guests really won't care that you don't have a big extravagant cake.

I was at a wedding a bit ago, they bought some cakes from Wegmans. (Yummy cakes) and put flowers on them, and that was it, it looked really nice!

You can do anything like what AJ mentioned! i went to a wedding that had a donut wall instead.

think more about what you enjoy like if youre not a cake person, do you like pie? cookies? etc and then go with that

Dummy cakes are usually styrofoam covered in decorations. Unless you really want the look of a grand cake, I would just skip the dummy cake and do a small 1 tier cake for cutting and cupcakes or a sheet cake for serving to guests. Alternatively, you could skip the cake all together and do a different kind of dessert bar! Dessert bars are becoming pretty popular and you can either focus on one thing like cookies or donuts or have a variety of desserts and include some cupcakes for anyone who really wants cake.

You can do a donut wall! I've seen some people do that and it's actually pretty cute. Or you can have like just a dessert table.

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That is what I'm leaning towards also! I definitely wanted a cake for the cutting purposes, but I didn't think the amount of money for a big wedding was worth it when that money can go towards something else. Thank you for suggestion!

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I didn't even think about the large sheet cake idea, thank you!

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That's a good idea, thank you!

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I'm honestly not a big dessert person but I knew that I definitely wanted to have a dessert table for my guests. I have seen the donut wall a lot recently!

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That makes a lot more sense! So far people have been telling me that dummy cakes aren't worth it and I should skip it overall. I didn't realize that many people were against it! Thinking about doing a small cake just for the cutting purposes, but I do LOVE your idea with a variety of desserts as a dessert bar!

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I have seen the donut walls become more popular. Possibly doing the dessert table idea, thank you!!

You could do cheesecake,

Neither of us like cake and I could not wrap my head around spending 800-1,000 dollars on one from a bakery. We reached out to our caterers and they are doing a dessert bar for the guests that includes cookies, brownies, custard cups, and lemon bars. For us they are making a small Tirimasu to cut into and put our topper on. This all cost us $400 for 120 people since it was not through a bakery.

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Didn't think about that one, thank you!!

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That's what I was thinking, not worth all that money. I haven't booked a caterer yet, just trying to come up with some ideas, but I will definitely keep that in mind! $400 for a dessert bar sounds a lot better than spending hundreds on just a cake! This was really helpful, thank you so much!

Dummy cakes with supplemental sheet cakes are actually more expensive. If they aren’t, the vendor doesn’t understand pricing. One of the best wedding cakes I’ve ever had was a grocery store sheet cake in addition to a dummy cake (the fake cake being “cut” for pictures which confused everyone but the sheet cake was a hit.


Go with a basic wedding cake from a local grocery store because they are tasty and much less expensive than an independent bakery (last I checked, they are $100ish but it depends on location) if it isn’t important to you. Another option is serve whatever dessert you like instead. Either way, everyone needs to have the same dessert choices. It’s not polite to have a dessert just for you or the wedding party that the other guests are not allowed to have.

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We are actually thinking about getting a wedding cake from Publix! I didn't know that dummy cakes were more expensive so thank you for that. Even though we aren't really cake people, we do want our guests to be able to have a dessert option.

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You can definitely ask about their prices and go from there.

How many guests will you have? We found a (non-custom) cake from a bakery for $50 for our small wedding. You could get a small cake to cut and then get cupcakes or a grocery store sheet cake.