Elsie replied: "I don't recommend it, even if you are a good baker. I was going to do my own flowers, because we only had 80 people, I'm pretty good at that kind of stuff, and to save some money. My husband talked me out of it, saying "Do you really want to spend the night before the wedding making bouquets and centerpieces?" I was a little disappointed that I wasn't going to do it myself, but I agreed with him. In the end, I was really happy that I did. I was able to go out for cocktails with my wedding party after the rehearsal and then back to the hotel where all of my family was staying, and spend some time with them. I can't even imagine how stressed out I'd be if I'd had to spend that entire evening "being crafty". I work at a restaurant that does weddings, and we don't allow home made cakes, for liability reasons. If our staff serves the cake, and the guests (God forbid) get sick from it, we could be held responsible, even if we didn't make it. If there is a bakery with liability insurance that made the cake, then the responsibility falls on them. This probably won't be an issue if you're having the reception at a rented hall with an outside caterer, but if you holding your reception at a place that is also providing the food and/or the staff is serving the cake to the guests, make sure you get it cleared by them before you proceed. One last comment: the first year I was working at this place, a bride, unbeknownst to us, made her own cake. We didn't find out until a week before the wedding, so the owner decided to allow it, rather than make her go out and try to find a bakery on such short notice. We allowed her to deliver the cake to us the night before. She said it didn't need refrigeration, so she was just going to set it up in the room where the cake table was supposed to be. Well, she arrived on time to deliver the cake, but informed me that it had fallen over in the back of the SUV on the way there. She said she had it boxed, and it shouldn't have tipped, but it did. The only thing she could think happened was that the night before, she had the cake sitting next to the stove when she was cooking dinner, and the heat from the stove may have "melted" the filling in the bottom layer. She thought the weight of the cake and the jostling of the truck on the ride over must have caused it to "collapse". She said she was going to go home and see if she had time to bake a whole new cake (the night before her wedding!!!). She ended up just buying circular styrofoam forms from Michaels Crafts and using it as a "dummy" cake. Then she went to Sams Club and bought sheet cakes to serve as dessert. She was amazingly calm about it all...grace under pressure, I guess. If you love to bake, and really want to do something for the wedding, consider making cookies as favors for the guests to take home. You can do cut outs and decorate them in your wedding colors (chocolate frosting with all the pink accents you were going to do on the cheesecakes). You can do them the weekend before the wedding, rather than stressing out about being responsible for "the star of the show" (next to the bride, of course!)."