i helped organize a wedding this summer. i found that wedding cakes from bakeries are beyond awful expensive....$2 a slice? and i have to pay for a 1 inch by 1 inch taste piece? b/c it was a wedding cake? rip offs in my opinion. i called around to several grocery stores that had bakeries....krogers, meijers, andersons and giant eagle locally, asked for and got tastes (when i was there at the store ) and got a huge sheet cake from giant eagle for just $45. it served the 100 people who were at the party, and the decorations were fine, the taste was great and i'd use that bakery again in a second. for favors, well they didn't appeal to me, mostly from past wedding/anniversary parties i found the favors are expensive and unless you're really really tight with the couple, the favors wind up in goodwill asap. for the wedding this summer, we bought disposable cameras, 1-2 for each table and had paid for photo finishing for each camera. we made photo cds from those those cameras, so each one got photos of their loved ones dressed up a bit. matches, with silver names and dates are useful. can be used for candles as the year goes by, those small silver votives are cool, they do twinkle beautifully, and m&m will do chocolate bars with the couples names/dates on them. finger foods are fine. non alcoholic punch is good. and i love the idea of a mosaic of the original wedding party, way cool.