Wedding and Groom Cake Disaster... - Page 3

I feel like you can go back on your refund quote. Just like the example of a "simple" cake. Get the information and use that. I think this is buyer's remorse. I had made a cake, sketched the cake and made the cake look like the sketch. The bride signed the sketch. I set up the cake (A tall three tier) on a 10 ft round table. It was a 6 10 14 and the layers were about 5 inches tall. As I was setting up the cake, the MOB and FOB were yelling about the cake. That is an awful cake and on and on. They stated they did not get what was ordered. It was too small. The venue, thankfully, replaced the table with a smaller table and that helped. But the bride swore that this was not the cake she ordered. She showed up at the bakery 4 weeks later after her European honeymoon and demanded a full refund. The cake was too short. Our tiers are usually only 4 inches but new baker made them taller and I used the full height made. She was told of the height of the cake the day before would be about 12 inches. She hollered and yelled and tried to embarass me. Later that afternoon, her MIL came in with the pictures. I thought I was going to cry. It was a picture of the bride smiling at the cake and the majority of the cake served, as they ordered too big a cake anyway. She also told me they have video of everyone complimenting the cake, would we like a copy. I think that you will find the same in your case. The bride spent more than daddy wanted and he found an easy target to aim for. Don't back down, every bride will hear whine a bit and get a refund

I completely disagree - you are NOT stuck. She does not deserve a refund so why should you be out the money? I'm sorry but it is not right for the bride to take advantage of you! Get the facts and be reasonable - don't give in just to avoid the pressure. Like someone else said...let her sue you. You will WIN!

Something similar to this did happen to me 3 years ago. I did a cake for a bride & groom and they were unhappy with the cake for some very MINOR reasons (fondant swag fell in back and though the shade of pink of a little too light). They didn't contact me - they just stopped payment. He was a police officer and thought he was in the right and I would just let it go...

I sued them and they thought that I was going to lose - well, let me tell you. I did NOT lose and they were forced to pay it back to me. The judge looked at the photos and evidence and realized that their complaints were completely ridiculous and that was the end of that. I have a sense that the same thing would happen for you!

The judge will look at the pictures and possibly agree that there were some minor problems but you would never have to refund the entire amount - only a partial refund, if anything! As a person who just opened my shop in the last year - my advice to you is do not do anything so rash to put you in further financial strain. You're going to need that!

Good Luck!

Tammi

I'm really sorry this happened to you, but I have to agree with the others on this one, do not refund that money! I'm not a professional, but when I got married my cake didn't look anything like what I ordered. But we cut and served it, and we ate it, so I did not go back to the bakery to ask for a refund. (the cake was delicious BTW)
If you ate it, you own it!
Definitely check with the venue, if that cake was eaten, then she doesn't get her money back. If you want to be nice, maybe offer $100 back, but do not give her a full refund! Your time and effort are well worth what you charged!

Either way, no matter what you do finally decide, know it's a lesson learned, right?

Hold up, I am still not clear on the situation. Did you offer to fully refund her or did she push you into it? You need to tell her that in order to fully refund her you need to see pictures of the cake, and you need a statement from someone working at the hall that the cake was NOT served. Also, could you put a non-refundable deposit in your contract? That way you can make sure that ingredients will always be covered? (Just a suggestion).
I'm so sorry that you have found yourself in such a lousy situation. Keep your head up high and please let us know what happens.

I do not sell cakes, but I run a different business on the side. It's hard to even think on going back on what you said you would do.. refund. However, before you do anything.. I would draft up a letter, send it CERTIFIED, stating that for legal purposes, before any money is refunded you will need a written statement with the discrepancies from the contract to what was actually given as well as pictures of the delivered cake showing what she was unhappy with. I would also contact the coordinator and find out if the cake was served (or the venue if you think the coordinator won't be forthcoming). This way you can get the images of the horrible cake (LOL) and if it is in accordance with the contract, you can back out of your refund offer.

Good luck with whatever you do.. but I would definitely have some documentation from her-- it's her job to prove it wasn't up to standard...

She should produce the cake for a full refund. See if the photographer got any photos.

Talk to us when you feel like it.

Let me tell you a story.. I use to design and make custom wedding gowns. I wold one to this girl in Fla. for $2000 and her bridesmaids dresses were $800. They were all perfect. Custom made to size and color, material the whole ball of wax. Well she did a chargeback on her credit card after her wedding claiming that she couldn't use the gowns that they didn't fit and all this. Well it took a little digging but I found myspace pictures on her brothers myspace. She didn't put them on her myspace until it was all settled but her brother did and I linked into his through hers. She was wearing the gown and the bridesmaids were wearing the dresses. She gave me the same song and dance on how she invested all their wedding money in the dresses and I ruined her wedding. Bull honey! Find out the truth before you give her one red cent. And by the way...yes I won my case.

I think that since you yourself admit that the cakes were messed up by someone else before they ever even left your shop, and then your driver admitted to messing it up even more when dropping it off, a refund is in order. At least partially. If what was delivered was not what was ordered and agreed upon, then I think you should give something back to her. The people at the venue didnt say everything was fine, they said "crap happens" which isnt saying that the woman lied. Sounds like crap happened and it wasnt right, for whatever reason. As for everyone bashing the woman saying that it's BS that she went cheap on flowers and skipped her honeymoon to spend on an awesome cake, not everyone has a 25,000 budget for their wedding, and some people do choose to put more money toward some things than others. And in doing that, I can totally understand that they'd expect what they're paying so much for to be top quality. As for whether they ate any of it or not, what would you expect them to do? Would you have preferred them to stand up and say, "This is the name of who we chose to make our cake, it got royally screwed up, so we arent serving anything at all, don't hire her for anything."?? I think I'd prefer them to do what they did, and call me to make it right rather than bashing my name all over town. I just think that a lot of people are quick to lash out at the customer for a mistake that they didn't make. If I order something, I want it to be what I pay for. $800 is a lot of money for something to not be what you pay for. I also think that the original poster wouldnt have offered a full $800 refund if she didnt think that it was deserved, she'd have stuck to the partial no matter what the woman was saying.

You mentioned that you spoke to the wedding planner and hall manager I think it was? What did they say about the cake???

Sorry this happened to you, I know it hurts. I know this can just shatter your confidence, and I hope you get right back on that cake horse. I think we cake decorators are very sensitive souls, since we are artists at heart.
Best of luck.

My point on this is that the bride was emotional, crying on the phone and I believe at this point in the thread that she was irrational as well. Horrendous cake? The color was off.

Our designer said that the cake looked like the cake the bride ordered--so that's what I'm going on.

I mean the driver put the birds on wrong--what does that mean?
The cakes were not set up correctly.

Perhaps errors were made--but we need more info.
The errors I am hearing are not conducive to an $800 refund.

And yes she should not have served that cake if it was that bad to warrant a full refund. So since she did use it she should have to pay for it--maybe she does deserve some refund, jury's still out on that in my mind.

The point about honeymoon and flower shortages is that there was no money for a honeymoon, cake and flowers within this $800 mark. kwim

100% agree!!!!

Okay, I see what you mean about having someone crying and upset on the phone could possibly make you make a misjudgment about how much of a refund to give. It'd probably make me pretty upset too, especially if I was already upset about the quality of what I was sending out to begin with (the guitar, and being rushed with taking on too many orders to give this one proper attention). I do think it would help to have photos of what happened to compare to the sketch of what went wrong. Perhaps I'm touchy on wedding cake issues because my wedding cake looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like what it was supposed to...but it did taste AMAZING so we didn't complain. We just went with it since it was too late to do anything about it anyway. No one knew but us.

After thinking more about it, I think I'd only offer to do a partial refund, unless in your heart you feel that a full refund is truly deserved. I do have to wonder though, of all three cakes (the wedding cake, the baseball cap and the guitar) is she saying that they didnt serve ANY of them and that they ALL tasted funny because of the icing?? I think I'd want the cakes back if she is saying she didnt serve them at all. What'd she do with them then? And if she didnt serve them, how does she know everyone thought they tasted weird because of the fondant with less buttercream icing underneath? Too many questions for me!! Go with what you feel you should do on it, is probably all the advice I should give.

This is all quite interesting but reading the op post and her other post I think that she has already decided to give the money back no matter what anyone says. This is what she wants to do so all the back and forth about what she should do doesnt matter because she is letting her emotions take over instead of going with the facts. Yeah the cake had issues but she never answered the question on whether the cake was served. That is the main question. Was the cake served or not? Find out. If it was served and they ate it then give them like half back if you feel that horrible. When did all this happen? Because if they didnt serve it the cake is gone in the garbage now because who saves cake for like four days. If you want to give the money back because you FEEL bad then do that! I'm not trying to be rude or anything but that is the truth. The bride is acting like the cake sat there wasnt cut and they threw it in the garbage. If that's the case then give them back their money and as I heard someone quote on here before "Put your big girl panties on" and deal with the situation instead of taking the easy way out and just throwing her the money. If your shop is new you are going to be closed in a year because everyone that complains and is mean or angry will get their money back and you will become a bank just handing out checks every month to customers. Face reality.

Agreed.

If she ate it and served it, she pays. You delivered a product and she accepted it. You did not contract a refund so you are not legally binding to do so. If you truly believe it was a subpar cake, do a partial refund but no more than 20%.

Next time she calls, ask her to bring the cake back to get her full refund. When she can't because she ate it, she's admitting that not all the cake was bad, therefore, you delivered your cake.