The question you need to answer first is, are you serving your wedding cake as dessert, or are you wrapping the cake for guests to take home?
If you are serving cake as dessert, you will need a piece of cake for every guest, whether they eat cake or not. This is due to the fact that most banquet halls do not ask your guests if they want cake. They simply cut up the cake and put a piece at every place setting.
If you are wrapping the cake, you do not need to have a piece for every person. Guests will usually take a piece with them as they are leaving the reception. It is up to you how much cake to order. We suggest you order cake for one-half to two-thirds of your guests.
You won’t have a final count of wedding guests until about one month to two weeks prior to your wedding date. However, there is a formula for estimating what your actual count is likely to be: take 20% off of the total amount of people you are inviting. For example, if you are inviting 200 people: 200 x .20 = 40 (declines), making 160 servings the amount most likely needed. We suggest that you only order what you think you will need. We will be happy to add “extra servings” to accommodate any guest overages, but we will not “change down” a cake structure once it has been booked.