HELP! Wedding cake HEdoublehockysticks... refund?!?!??? - Page 2  

I'm so sorry for this happening to you. Fear of something like this is why i never spend the $$ recieved on a cake until the cake is done and delivered successfully. Then should something go wrong and i have to make good on it, i have the cash handy to do so.

I do agree with everyone else, its not this brides fault that you got in over your head. We could all learn from this, and not take orders that is beyond us at the time.

I am wondering how waterfallsoygurl feels about all the responses and what she has chosen to do. I hope you take all of this feedback as help and love. We want only what is best for you and we hope it all comes good in the end. Let us know how it goes.

I agree. As much as you may have spent on this cake, you should give the bride a full refund. It will save face. Trust me. I've also worked in customer service and I know that bad press spreads much faster than good press!

Face time is also necessary. You can present her with a list of the ingredients you used and their cost, that might help the bride see just how much effort it took on your part, but the cake disaster definitely made a bad dent in her wonderful day.

Long story short - the first time I got married, my parents hired a bakery to do a 3 tier heart cake with pillars and lots of pink roses. Cake was to be torted and filled with IMBC. The cake was an hour and forty minutes late, was 3 stacked rounds (no pillars) and a couple of roses thrown here and there. No IMBC. No torting. Dunno what it was. (Wasn't doing cake then.) Completely ruined my day. Turns out the baker was called out of town on emergency family leave. No one called me though. My stepmother walked in with the top tier and Salvatore immediately wrote her a check for a full refund. While I was upset about it, his willingness to rectify the situation definitely eased my anger. So, I always had that nice little statement to add after I said my cake was horrid. (It didn't taste as good as the samples either lol)

As far as my contract is concerned - I have a 50% deposit. Final payment due and no changes after 2 weeks prior, or else they incur a charge of $50 or the cost of the change - whichever is greater.

I'm really sorry that this all happened to you! Definitely a bad week! I'd just chalk it up to a learning experience!

OH. MY. GOBS--You poor, poor thing! Really sorry this happened to you...

BUT--I've lived through that kind of thing--not exactly with cakes, per se, but a "housing-drama-changing-kitchen" type of thing---AND IT NEVER EVER WORKS OUT RIGHT!!

So, in the future--go with what everyone earlier has said--and ALWAYS ALWAYS try to have EXTRAS on hand for "mistakes!"

I agree with the contract clauses and the partial refund.

No WAY in hell I'd give her a full refund, though...she'd just have to get over it.

--Knox--

I'm so sorry that happened to you. What an awful predicament to be in.

I have to agree with those who recommended you give the bride a full refund.
I hope you are able to recover financially!

Let us know what you decided to do.

One more thing...

I know you can recover from this lousy experience. After all, you're the decorator who figured out how to put a real waterfall on a wedding cake! (For those of you who haven't seen that cake, take a peek in her photos--it's really cool. )

I'm sorry this happened to you but I agree with the majority. I would refund the full payment. In the end (no matter how you look at it and how painful it was) you agreed to the changes and the bride did not get what she wanted nor paid for. We all know that working with brides can be difficult but ultimately they are the ones paying for the product and service. If you refund her money, apologize for the unfortunate string of events and leave her with a smile her final thought will be "Even though I didn't get what I wanted, she made it right" rather than an agry bride that might not stop until your reputation is in shambles. Chalk this up as a lesson learned.

Again - I am so sorry this happened

DH cake mixes are NOT vegan. They have milk product in them. The egg replacer is what most likely caused the crumbling. I was out of eggs one night and wanted cake so I used egg replacer with a DH boxed mix. The cake was soooooo crumbly I couldnt even ice it without the cake falling apart.

Im sorry you had to go through all that. Your post had me scared lol. But I have to side with the bride here. You shouldnt have agreed to make those changes and Im sure had you known that boxed mixes (unless advertised as such) are not vegan you could have told them that and avoided the whole mess. You didnt hold up your end of the contract. Im sure the embarrassment you felt by having to deliver and set up the crumbly cake was nothing compared to what she felt by having to serve that to her family and friends. I would put yourself in her shoes and think what you would want. If it were me Id expect a full refund. Id write her a check for the full amount, apologize and try to butter her up as much as possible so she doesnt tarnish you rep.

~Kelsie: please realize that many of us have been where you were at one time or another. Or if we haven't we may be. I can't even imagine how you felt. Don't let this stop you from making other wedding cakes...use it as a lesson learned...believe me, I have had to learn many lessons & am still doing so!!

Do you have a picture of the finished wedding cake?

not to pile on, but . . .
not only SHOULD you give her a refund, you ought to it and quickly. I you have a contract and she has pictures (which in your own post you say would indicate the cake isn't what the contract specifies), you will lose if (or more likley when) she takes you to small claims court. A judge won't care what it costs you to make or if her requests caused problems, since you agreed to meet her requests. AND you'll have court fees to pay on top of all that.

I think the posts have a good theme: use this as a learning experience, and move on. No sense in owrrying about it anymore since it is past.

Hi!

I am truly sorry for the horrible experience. I have had nightmares of this happening to me!

Anyway...in my opinion...I think you should give the bride a full refund and apologize for all the issues. You might kindly explain that the changes to the cake made it difficult to make and you did a test on one cake...but ended up having trouble on the rest.

This could have happened to any of us. Sometimes things just do not go as smooth as we want them. Take this as a learning experience and do not give up!

Do you have a photo of the cake??? Sometimes we are our own worst critics!

Good luck on the next one!

I am anxiously awaiting an update from waterfallsoygurl!

I hope you realize we all understand your frustration with this situation. And, as stated before, many of us have been in a similar situation!

We hope all works out well for you, and for your disgruntled bride. You are an excellent decorator, please don't let this one cake undermine your confidence in yourself. Make things right with her and move on to better things!

Hey waterfallsoygurl. First of all, thank you for sharing your experience with us, there is a lot to learn there. Unfortunately, at a considerable cost to you, time and $$ and frustration, I'm sure. Bottom line, you have to make the call based on your relationship with this customer, but know you have us CC"s support. Question..was any of this cake edible, was it eaten? If so, you may have a case to recover some of the ingredients costs at least. Whatever you decide, I agree, smother her with kindness when you communicate. That goes a lot farther than any other approach. Good luck.

I am going to try to be as nice as possible about this whole thing as I can. And I am very sorry that this happened to you. But, after reading your post and taking a look at your photos, I would recommend that you refund the brides money, in full. You got in way over your head on this one.

It will be a learning experience for all of us to keep up our skills and no our limits!!!!!!

Wow, so sorry this happened to you. You should probably refund her money. I don't think you'll find peace within yourself until you do. I can totally sympathize with the bride, but being a decorator myself can easily imagine myself in your shoes too.

I think what I'd do is talk to her and explain the details of what went wrong, just so she understands that you didn't just slap something together. Give her some understanding of how much time and money you actually did spend on this cake, then give her a refund. This way she will hopefully move on without harboring any angry feelings towards you. She really needs to know that you worked your butt off for her and that the end result was the product of your inexperience with boxed mixes and egg substitutes and such.

It does suprise me too that she wanted boxed mixes and frosting since they're not vegan! Wonder if she knows this? They both have milk products in them. Too bad she couldn't just have left her original order alone, but next time you have a vegan bride you'll know first hand what does and doesn't work and can make the best choice for them.

Sorry if I'm rambling, I just feel for you! This is something that I could so see happening to me. I have my Lucy moments all the time (Lucille Ball) and that's the way I imagine this in my head. I think the worst part for you is that you really did do the best you could and the result were disasterous. It's hard to work and work at something and then have no one appreciate your efforts. Hang in there. Next time will be better!