One of the best ways to save money on wedding cakes is to use an ornamental wedding cake on the cake table, and have a sheet cake to serve to guests. A sheet cake is an ordinary flat slab cake, iced on top to match the ornamental wedding cake, but generally without piping, flowers etc which all add to cost. When the cake is cut and served, guests will have no idea the wedding cake on display was merely ornamental.

Most bake shops that do wedding cakes have ornamental wedding cakes available for rent. Ornamental wedding cakes are made of Styrofoam, decorated with real icing to look just like a real wedding cake. One ornamental wedding cake can be rented out many times for many different weddings, so the bakery can afford to set rentals fees much lower than what you'd pay for a real cake.

Another option is to just have a small wedding cake for show, with several sheet cakes in the kitchen to cut for the guests. This will save you a lot of money on the cost of your wedding cake, yet still allow you to have a real wedding cake on display at your wedding, rather than an ornamental one.

When choosing your wedding cake design, opt for simple cakes with minimal decoration as the more labor that is required to decorate the wedding cake, the more costly. Try to also skip having multiple tiers with fancy pillars because this all adds to costs. Instead, have the cake layers stacked one on top of the next. Or find a baker that allows you to borrow pillars rather than making you pay for them. Or have the baker use disposable pillars instead of the costly crystal ones. Also, check with a local party rental store to see if it offers rentals on wedding cake pillars.

Other affordable wedding cake ideas are to have the cake decorator make and ice a rather simple wedding cake - then YOU add your own fresh flowers or silk flowers as decoration for the cake. You can ask your florist to supply extra flowers for the cake that will match your bouquets, or just pick the flowers from your garden on the day of your wedding. If you prefer to purchase or pick flowers the day before, keep the flowers in some water in your fridge. Sprinkling rose petals or placing flowers around the base of the cake are simple yet elegant designs you can do yourself and save a lot of money.

Alternatively, bake your own cake or enlist the help of a friend or family member to do this for you as their wedding gift to you. Fresh fruit, edible flowers, and wedding cake figurines can really dress up an otherwise simple wedding cake.

Also find out if your reception venue offers a wedding cake as part of the catering package. Some venues will provide a real wedding cake while others may include an ornamental one along with a slab cake for the first tier so you can include the cake cutting ritual.

Additional affordable wedding cake ideas are to have wedding cupcakes rather than the traditional wedding cake. This actually has become quite trendy and can really look impressive, so no one will know you did it to save money. It's something a little different and will enhance your wedding's unique sense of style. The cupcakes are generally arranged in tiers similar to wedding cakes, often stacked to form what is known as a cupcake tree. Each guest receives an individual cupcake. This saves on having to pay the fee for cake cutting as well as paying for a large, expensive cake. The fee when a reception venue or caterer charges for cutting and serving a cake is called "cakeage". Fees can be up to $4 or $5 per person.

Finally, when and how the cake will be served will also affect cost, so there are opportunities for savings here as well.
 
If you are serving your wedding cake as the dessert you'll need each serving to be rather large and you'll have to ensure you have enough cake to serve each guest. When the wedding cake is served as dessert you normally need 3 times as much cake as when serving cake fingers with coffee toward the end of the reception.

Wedding cake "finger" slices are normally served on a platter towards the end of the evening along with coffee, sort of as a late night snack shortly before the party winds down and guests head home. When you are serving wedding cake in this manner, the general rule is that you need only need enough cake for 70% of the guests.

Internationally recognized wedding expert Linda Kevich (creator of SuperWeddings.com and director of The International Institute of Weddings), offers this money saving wedding cake buying tip: