Crazy Customer Stories

You mean the one who ordered food for 100, upped it to 125 at the last minute, had 170 show up, ran out of meatballs and said that *I* should have planned better??????

Or the bride who wanted her 3-tier wedding cake "pre-cut"?

Or the brides who ask me if I cook the food in advance? ("No, darlin', I have a hotplate that I whip up food for 100 for in about 10 minutes!"). I did ask one bride, "Is there an on-site kitchen I will have full access to?" and when she said 'no', I said, "Then I guess I'll be cooking it in advance then."

Or years ago, the bride who mixed her own punch. Used green and orange sherbet .... mixed together...... a combination of the 3 primary colors ..... ended up with 2 bowls of brown, lumpy punch.

I especially love the ones who think it's cheaper to do it themselves. Like the mom who made up 40 gallons of lemonade, and not in mass .... she made 40 one-gallon jugs! ..... for 125 people! She had 20 gallons left. (can you imagine carrying in 40 one-gallon jugs??? My arms hurt just thinking about it! I want to know how she got it all in her car!)

I'm sure I'll think of others!!

P.S. some great stories on www.etiquettehell.com

BE WARNED! I pulled an all-nighter reading that site!!

This was my worst non-customer..."PowerPoint Lady"

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=42224&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=powerpoint&&start=0

When someone tells you $2/serving is too much and then you find out their budget for invitations is $200, it's time to wish them well and say goodbye.

I'm sure most of us could go on and on and on and on about... let's say interesting customers. Just this week, in my decorating class (that's in the classroom of my retail bakery/ supply shop) I had a student ask me for my cake recipes. When I told her no, she genuinely seemed surprised! I told her they were propietary (love that word) and she then asked if that meant she couldn't have ANY of my recipes?! Even the other students were looking at her like she was an idiot! Of course I've had brides do the same thing. I had a customer come in around Christmas time to order cookies wanting them the next day, I was completely overbooked and had to tell her no. A few weeks later she came in and ordered with enough lead time and made a point to tell me that she had looked up a recipe for my cookies online and made them for Christmas and they were really good. Yeah, I'm sure it was the same recipe that I have honed over 10 years and if it was so great, why are you ordering now?! Some days it's harder than others to keep the smart a** remarks from floating right out of my mouth! A lot of times people don't mean to be as rude as they sound, they just don't think before they speak. Other times, they should be slapped and hard! LOL
-Lori

kelleym I remember the powerpoint lady.....so funny!!!

My only bad customer ( I've been lucky...and haven't really had THAT many customers lol) is a lady that called on a wednesday to ask me if I could make a 3-D octopus, for Friday!!!...I tell her it's her lucky day I have no orders and feel like doing a carved cake LOL so I get to work the next day.......bake the cakes necessary had my design sketched out......then she called thursday afternoon as I'm crumb coating the cakes....."I made a mistake, it needs to be a squid NOT an octopus...but they're pretty much the same thing right?" ....in my head "are you serious?? no way are they the same an octopus has a big bulbus head with 8 big tentacles and a squid if flatter and longer with 10 tentacles!!!!"...but I stayed calm, I said I already baked the cakes but I'll see what I can do.....she thanks me and says she'll pay extra for the inconvenience ..I tell her that won't be necessary......she comes the next morning after I pump out an incredible squid cake...had the wing thingies on it and everything...I ever curled some of the tentacles and had the little suction cups on the underside...took photos.....she came to pick it up and opens the box and says....."is that what a squid looks like?"...." I thought they were kinda pink?" I said "No........an octopus is PINK, squids are a greyish kinda color and you peel back the skin and they're a milky white and that's what you cook (her nickname was Calamari Carol hence why she wanted a squid cake, only problem is she thought calamari came from an octopus!).......in any case, she took the cake......I went on the p.c. uploaded the photos from my NEW camera....and proceeded to erase them from the camera before saving them on the p.c. along with tons of pics of our latest vacation aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhh!!! So basically the lady hated the cake , I thought it was awesome and I NEVER think any of my cakes look awesome and now I have no pic. to prove it even existed!!! LOL

how about this: i thought it was weird when a bride called to ask if she could get a discount on fillings since she was ordering cake AND mints. I politely told her no. Then i thought it was weirder when i received an invitation to her shower (i thought it was a mistake) but lo and behold, i get an invitation to her wedding!?!? ummm, i'm making your cake, that doesn't make me your pal. does that sound mean?

And to think I was goin to clean the fish tank tonight! Hahaha!
Great site!

I had an email from a bride just recently who wanted to know if she got a discount because her event was "only" 50 people. I sent her a reply explaining that she was more likely to run into upcharges to cover minimum overhead since she was "only" 50 people.

Another asked if she got a discount because the wedding was on a Friday.

That's not too crazy -- some wedding vendors offer a discount to weddings held on an "off" day. My own wedding was on a Friday night because we got the venue at a $500 discount -- hoo yeah, I was a budget bride!

I know some venues do that .... but this caterer doesn't! My staff works for me part - time .... they have full time jobs and it's actually harder for me to staff a Friday night event, so I have to pay them more as an incentive ...NO DISCOUNT!!!

am I reading that correctly... a bride wanted a 3 tier pre-cut wedding cake? Just out of curiosity how did she respond when you said you couldn't do that?

I posted this in another thread awhile back, but it still reigns supreme in my Crazy Customer book:

this bride comes in, and obviously they'd figured out the whole - "fewer guests equals less cost" concept, which I guess was a good thing, we get to talking and she pulls out this photo from a magazine which was a 5-tier fondant creation that was simple and elegant, totally do-able, for $3.25 per serving, so we got to talking about servings, and yes - she really wanted it to have the full 5 tiers because her cousin so-and-so got married in April and HER cake was 4 tiers, and she really wanted it to be BIGGER.

So I told her the cost per slice, and the total cost, and she goes - but...I'm only inviting 75 people -
so I go - yes but the cake you want serves 208 -
and she goes - so what do you mean, I can't get this cake for $175? -
and I go - no, I'm sorry. -
and she goes - how about $200? - and I go - I can't even buy the supplies for that. -
and she goes - OK, thanks...(and says to her mom on their way out the door, can't we just go back to WalMart?)

As soon as they were out of earshot and eyesight, I laughed myself literally sick.

What do they think, we're going to supply not only their wedding reception with cake, but also every family gathering for the next MONTH???

Didn't you know that the electricity it takes to make the cake doesn't cost as much monday through Thursday so the friday wedding should be cheaper? Oh and the ingredients for the cake don't cost as much during the week either, so that is where she saves money right?

Here's a couple of my favorites!
I had a bride ask me to cut her 3 tiered cake from the bottom up, but don't take it apart, she wanted it to stay pretty for as long as possible
Then there was the mom who insisted on having lavender colored punch, when I told her it couldn't go through the kind of beverage fountain she was renting she said"don't worry about it it will be okay" so not only did it foam like an angry ocean, the foam was gray because of the color of the punch!