Alternative to a cake

I’m buying mine at Safeway one tier 30 and 2 tier 60. They can also do cupcakes and a small cake for you

There are cheaper options at your local grocery store that are tiered cakes. I tried one at a wedding and it wasn’t as good as a gourmet bakery but it was good. I think cupcakes are great, you can offer a ton of variety in flavors. Good luck!

Cupcakes, pies, assorted mini desserts

Cupcakes, pies, brownies, assorted pastries, ice cream bar, smores, a candy bar, popcorn bar, trail mix bar...

We found a bakery that didn't charge more for a wedding. We bought a small cake to cut and 5 dozen cupcakes in 4 flavors for just under 50 people. We actually could have gone with 4 dozen but we also had cookies, brownies, and dessert bars from Wegman's as well, they were a hit! We spent about $275 for everything.

I think cupcakes are becoming more of the norm. I would definitely suggest that and have them on tiers. You can also keep this option and add a cake portion so, that you and your fiance can still cut the cake. I hope this helps.

You can have any sort of dessert you like. Are you looking specifically to have something to cut in front of everyone? (Pie? Cheesecake? Cookie cake? — just make sure whatever you cut is available to all guests [i mean it’d be okay to cut a cookie cake then serve cookies])

We skipped cake and had a shortcake bar instead — biscuits, fresh whipped cream, and a few berry options. It was a big hit! We didn’t care about a cutting but if we wanted to do one we would’ve just assembled a shortcake on a plate and fed eachother bites

We're doing donuts instead of a cake! But as other's have said, you can do any dessert (pies, cupcakes, cheesecake, etc.)

Cupcakes, cake pops, pies, etc. I went to a wedding recently and they just had a few different kinds of single serve desserts

You can literally serve any dessert you like.

But there are reasons for the so-called wedding markup. People planning weddings are often much more effort to deal with, requiring exponentially more time spent on back and forth communication and extra hand holding. The amount of pressure for perfection for a wedding is quite different from a birthday party, corporate event, or family reunion.

If you want cake, you can get a small one-tier cake for cutting then sheet cake for everyone. Or Nothing But Bundt cakes are yummy & a lot less!