Hi __________________,
I'm actually glad the fax did not go through yesterday because frankly, I don't want to send this to your place of business as this is more of a personal matter. I will mail you the document after I can just look at the cakes. I feel this is only fair! Also, you did not give me the current address to send the checks to either. Please email that to me when you get this. The payments would begin by March 20th because I've already invested all my current cash flow in the two advanced cake classes coming up. According to my contract I really don't have to give back anything, but of course I want to save face and feel that you should be refunded for the guitar and topper.
However, on the other end I feel that this was very rushed and I have talked with a few other cake designers since speaking with you and they have all said it doesn't warrant even a $800.00 refund because firstly, you actually got the cakes, and they weren't burnt or destroyed, maybe less frosting than you wanted, but there was still something there (minus the guitar cake and the bridal topper). I only say this because I could tell you were acually starting to look for things that were wrong, such as the board showing some under the hat cake and the fact the black turned veryone's mouth black with the airbrush. Frankly, most people don't usually eat the airbrushed fondant because they realize food coloring will turn their mouth whatever color it is. I know you said the decorator put no icing underneath, and again, this is the guitar cake, which I was planning on refunding anyway (this would be approx $225.00 of the groom's portion and the topper would be $75.00). However, I know that the hat cake had 3 layers of frosting and you can't put a huge blob of frosting underneath fondant or the cake will slope .
Furthermore, I also did my own flowers at my wedding to save money, but I know that $900.00 in cakes did not prevent you from taking a honeymoon, because a honeymoon costs way more than that and Custom Cakes or Ace of Cakes would probably have charged you double what I charged since they have cake shops and employees (which I did too and caused me to lose money this time). I'm not trying to be rude here, but I frankly feel like you have buyers remorse and want all this money back unfairly when I had to pay employees to work, paid $250.00 plus in fondant and the fact you got two cakes which were correct minus the guitar cake, the cake topper and the berry cream cheese on 1 tier. I will admit that the only cake of your's I worked on was the hat cake (which I have now asked a 4th person and they state the picture was light tan, not blue or grey), Also, remmber that I had included the 2nd tasting in the wedding cake cost and that was $40.00 we added in on the pricing, which came to the 900-I'm not sure of the exact amount.... Mind you, I had to bake SEVERAL cakes for you that day and that was a lot of waste. $40.00 didn't even cover the cost of all that baking. And you told me not to pay my employees, but as a business owner, you cannot just "not pay someone" for a job that they did! Would you go to work and just not care if your employer said, "Well, this isn't the best job, so I'm not going to pay you today!?" You know that wouldn't fly and I have to pay them or else I can get sued by them, just like you would sue for your pay check.
I'm only saying all this because I need you to also see this from my end as well. It really isn't my fault that people decided not to eat the cakes. I actually wonder if you told everyone not to eat the cakes because you were wanting to return them for a refund. Of course everyone is going to agree with an upset bride that ALL the cakes looked absolutely atrocious. I have only had one instance where something like this happened and I was in a car accident and the wedding cake was destroyed, so I went to Bodi's at the last minute and they were able to put a cake together for me. I gave her back 25% because it wasn't the right flavors/design and felt this was fair because she still got a cake. Now, if I hadn't deilvered anything, then yes, I would feel I needed to give an enitre refund. I just really need to see the pictures and I will mail out the finalized document when I can see the cakes for myself.
Thank you,
Jennifer Campbell
