This is not only a CAKE disaster, but a 4 day fiasco, I cater and do floral as well as making cakes and shortly after getting started,(and thinking that I had enough practice to make me a pro HAHA!) I assured a bride that I could cater her rehearsal dinner for 35 people, almost 100 mi. from my home, and do all her catering and flowers for the church and all her decor as well as her bouquet (all the wedding party flowers) AND cater the wedding reception as well as doing her cakes!
We FINALLY had all the pew bows complete and all the candelabrum loaded and had a small U-Haul loaded with decor and made it down there and pulled off the rehearsal dinner ( fillet mignon and the whole 9 yds.) and got it cleaned up and went to our hotel to finish the bouquet and the cake we had brought un-iced...I hadn't slept in 3 days , the only other person helping me was my sister ( I had hired one other person to help who did NOT show) There was a torrential thunderstorm while we were loading and unloading and driving down there. A few things got left at home too far away to return to get...my bouquet fell apart ,it was the morning of the wedding and a Sat. and we were running out of time!!! I found an old lady at a food world who finished the flowers for me in the floral dept while we went back to the HUGE church where we couldnt find the carriers they promised us and tried to get everything moved in to different areas of the church (which were blocks apart) and of course the bride had wanted the heaviest candelabrum available ...black wrought iron...and we are dragging heavy stuff EVERYWHERE trying to get set up , the candles she wanted wouldnt work with these candelabrum so we wasted an hour trying to hotglue them in place, ran out when the photographer got there and went and got the flowers...( even tho I furnished all the flowers the old lady charged a mint to put them together but I didnt care at the time she saved my life) got back and after all this mess the church was actually decorated except for the bows on the front doors which were left at home, I had ordered WAY too many flowers so to make up for the forgotten stuff I put flowers everywhere...a doz here and there... . The flowers were done...the reception area didnt finish getting decorated...but the food DID get out there after keeping the guests waiting 30 minutes ( the ceremony lasted 30 mins after they told us it would be a good hour) and I am last minute smoothing the icing with paper towels only to have someone come in and make a smart comment that from a distance they saw me rubbing the cake with my hands...!!!! I never got to change from my work clothes to dress ones...and tho they werent dissappointed enough to want a refund or anything...I didnt deliver exactly what I promised...I slept for 2 days and cried off and on for the next week...but now it is actually kinda funny. I know seasoned pro's that are amazed at how much we actually got done, but at the time it was so awful! Oh and not to mention that the cake wanted was " The glow endures" by Wilton which is one of the biggest cakes I have ever seen ( and they wanted every layer a different flavor) and we did a grooms cake as well!!!! If I can find the God- awful photo of the cake I will post it. in all of its crooked , lumpy crusty, glory, it has to be one of the ugliest cakes of all time..as soon as I quit having this memory flashback...lol...!!!

Oh and I forgot the wedding reception was almost all hot foods and for over 200 people...lol.

OMG!!!! The good thing is you survived and have now experienced it...next time (if there is one hehehe) you'll know what to do and to hire reliable extra help!

Oh yes, we are working very regular, it was simply a case of thinking we could do more than we could. BUT we don't take on that much anymore, and we learned more valuable lessons from it than ya would believe.

Talk about trial by fire! How amazing it is that you were able to pull this off 99%. It normally takes a large team of people to do what the both of you did.

You know, I never thought about how funny that must look to outsiders (smoothing the cake). Their comment was really just a lack of knowledge on their part.

HEHE....yes, after we skulked about for weeks and almost decided to quit, we were informed by a lot of people that it was AMAZING That we got as much accomplished as we did.

But for a LONG time it was hard for us to see what we did wrong. LOL. I HONESTLY didn't post ALL of the things that went wrong, I was afraid you guys wouldn't believe it! Yes, I am sure a LOT of what we do would look funny to outsiders. I now run a shop where we sell wedding dresses , do cakes floral etc. BUT we schedule things in a DO- ABLE way. I am flying out to LA this summer to do a cake for a high brow ( lol ) member of the family who works in the film industry so you guys can bet Ill be sweating then...although I am only doing the cake, as it will be in "In Style Weddings" and a few other bridal magazines...(whew) I am SCARED...But excited too!

I know it really hurt you with one person not showing up. People don't take that seriously. I was hired to do an event for 100 people. I needed extra help because one of my regular staff could not work that day. The bride (a friend of a friend- yuck!) begged me to hire her cousin. The cousin did not show up, everything did not get done. The bride then said, "but it was only one person... I don't see how that matters." I said, "No, it wasn't 1 person I lost, it was 10 man-hours of labor that I did not have available to me. That's why it matters."

I actually got it all done but a tiny little bit. We can handle it.. huh?

You did well and quick thinking. I would have hired the floral lady, too, even at a loss. It's not the bride's problem and you do what you have to do... period.

Wow!! That sounds like Hell, but you know it sounds like you managed to do a pretty darned good job despite all the difficulties! The place got decorated! The rehearsal dinner went well! The food at the reception got served when you said you'd do it. Not your fault that they finished sooner than expected! And the cake got done! Disregard fools who don't understand how we smooth down icing with papertowels! What a jerk! Glad you decided to stay in the business! Sounds like you learned a lot about how much you could and coudn't do at once and how to schedule things much better!

Blessings,
~AngelWendy

My GOOD LORD!!!!

This is so far the worst of the situations I've ever heard. If it would happened to me, I think I would die!!!!

You're a strong woman, please let us see that pix.

OMG! And I was flipping out over delivering 23 cakes to one wedding! And you pulled it off! Someone was looking out for you that day!

Debbie

Here is the headless bride...or she should be anyhow...lol actually I am showing the bouquet, and the candelabrum...and a little of the decor

here is the church.... the candelabrum were supposed to have bows on them ...and the flower arrangements were supposed to be a little fuller. etc...here is what we were able to get photos of ...sorry they arent better but the bride wasnt EXACTLY giving me copies of her pics...lmao..we were lucky to get out with our lives!!! HEHE

KayDay, will you show us the cake?
The other pix of the decor look very lovely!
Headless bride pic is amusing!

~AngelWendy

Oh my, KayDay, you revived bad memories from my own wedding. I had hired someone to do my flowers, decorate the church, cater the reception, and had ordered a cake from the only bakery in town(I was born and raised in the country..nearest small town was 20 miles away). The night of the rehearsal, we got to the church to find that the church had not been decorated in any form or fashion. I thought, oh well, she is probably going to decorate it after we get done with the rehearsal. During the rehearsal dinner, I get the feeling that I need to call her and make sure she is going to do the decorations. It is now 9 p.m. and she tells me that she won't be able to decorate the church...and her friend, the caterer, will not be able to cater the reception. Talk about stress. Well, my friend, her mom, and myself go to the nearest Wal-Mart and get supplies to decorate the church..get it done around 3 a.m cause we also had to do centerpieces to match the bouquet(the person making my flowers had asked the decorator to do this) and part of one of the pews on the stage had fallen on my foot while we were decorating it, so I had to go to the hospital. Well, one (of the two) restaurant in town donated the food..we just had to take it to the reception and set it up. The wedding and reception went fine, even with my broken toe.

I just realized...I had ALREADY posted the cake..I thought I had...lol. Well anyway..there it was again...hehe and the pic is a BAD one ...it honestly doesnt show EXACTLY how ugly it was....once the fountain was filled and lit you could see it better....we just kept piling roses around it.

I see it now. It doesn't look that bad from a distance.

Hugs!
AngelWendy

Well at least the restaurant helped out..that was kind of them.MY GOODNESS!!! What a day that must have been for you though!!?! I felt so bad for the bride at ours...But I sincerely DID try to get everything perfect for her, and had my other helper not stood me up we would have done it........( or gotten close anyway)
But for someone to just cancel on you...and not only the decorator but the caterer too!!! OMG, just to not show at all...? And you had to call THEM to find this out???? THats UNFORGIVEABLE!!! Well unless there was a tragic death or accident in the family! And even then I believe I would have had someone ELSE call my client if I was in the middle of trauma! They say it's the things like that ..that you look back on and laugh about your wedding and it makes it memorable and funny and special? Has yours been long enough ago for that? Or are you still mad as hell? HEHE..Thanks for sharing!! Kay

Yes, Kay, after three years, I can look back on it and laugh...even though it was definitely not at the time. Talk about a major anxiety attack..lol...I would have understood if there had been a family emergency, but she said that she had forgotten about it. She was not in business much longer after that...because she was doing a lot of people that way. I just thought that I would share my story with you so that you would not feel so bad. You did everything that you could; you should be proud of that.