liz - glad i could help, good luck, do let me know what FH thinks... haha, don't worry the guests will come, but make sure you work in at least 30 mins flexibility in your day's schedule... weddings almost never start exactly on time!
roses - psst, tell you a secret, i wanted my friends to enjoy as well, so i ended up hiring the 2 girls who manned my reception table from my wedding planner, was very cheap, only $25 per hour or something... they were good, welldressed and professional, and no one knew the difference, all my guests thought they were my friends, haha.
as for the wedding cake, here's a gauge: i went with The Patissier (coz hubby loves their cakes), they are the MOST expensive but yummy - they charge about $60 per kg, which comes to $600 for my little 10kg fondant cake (100 guests). Fondant is heavy, that's why so expensive. But I would suggest for 230 guests you only need about 18kg for 3 tiers, maybe even less if you choose buttercream instead. Always <u>underestimate</u> the cake weight, because most people will only eat a small slice by the time it is cut (ours had lots leftover, and uneaten slices on their plates).... most singaporeans and older people don't eat cake very much, too rich.
you can probably get a nice and pretty cake from cheryl shuen (remove the "Z" from
http://www.cherylshuenZ.com/cakes/index.html) or other hotel bakeries for about $45 per kg, try shopping around. sometimes they charge by # of servings, in which case, around $3 per serving seems to be standard for most places. some good hotel bakeries for wedding cake = shangrila, hilton, the regent, marriott. of all of them, most people think shangrila has the closest quality to The Patissier's top-notch cakes.
hope that helps! if anyone disagrees, speak up - i LOVE talking about wedding cakes, they're so pretty, haha! we haven't even started talking about designs and flavors yet!!!