Wedding and Groom Cake Disaster... - Page 7

I rule that you are not a butthead. We all have had our bumps and made our mistakes. Just dust yourself off and keep going... but don't send out any more faxes/emails/letters till you run them by us or someone you respect in business; it didn't help your situation.... and no more debasing yourself. I mean it!!

Not to be disrespectful, but with all the money your losing, I'm surprised you're still in business..And why aren't you listening to anyone's advice in the past 7 pages??!

You seriously need to stop worrying about what she thinks of you and about the 'bad rep' you're going to get from her; if you ask me they are gonna be laughing at you all the way to the bank..Do you want that? I'd be more concerned with that image.

I just looked through your www it clearly states there is a 50% non-refundable deposit. So, if you're going to give her anything back it would be based on the other 50%....hopefully, you had that stated in the contract as well.


but...

From the bride's pov, and enlisting some of your previous statements, at least two of the cakes had issues...the guitar, and the wedding cake...more than just the topper...one tier didn't have the expected filling (berry cream cheese?). From looking at your homepage and at least one online listing for your business, I would expect near perfection from cakes ordered from you. You are using stock photos (forgive me, if these in fact belong to you) and photos of cakes created by others (forgive me if these in fact belong to you...there are numerous CCers who have aliasses(spelling is a joke)).


I don't believe the employees should be held responsible for this incident...if they were recently employed by your for this particular weekend, their abilities couldn't have been proven worthy enough to hold such responsibilities as completing a wedding cake (while you only worked on the hat?)...this would definitely not hold true if you knew the employees' abilities before they were employees of course.

You may wish to change the photos you're using to ones that represent cakes you've done so that your customers would have a better idea of your work...whether you'd gotten permission to use them or purchased the photos for use...or at least put a disclaimer on them stating they weren't done by you. Slight misrepresentation there.

I agree, I wouldn't send that!! ...didn't know you'd sent it already when I posted this. Oops. Either way, sounds like you already told her in the letter that you'd be refunding her for it, by asking her when you could start payments, then admitted to everything and more being wrong with the cakes and told her all about others that you'd messed up and that you hadn't even done the cakes yourself. I'm not sure you'd be able to get out of refunding her after this letter, if there was any chance of it before.

I was peeking at the site and noticed a point for clarification (unrelated to this thread) - on your general info page it says payment is due 2 weeks before and then it says 14 working days in the same breath. 14 working days is really like 3 weeks. Just thought you may want to reword

I haven't had time to read this whole thread so this may have already been asked but have any other people involved with this wedding received hysterical, crying phone calls from this bride? As in, "(boo hoo hoo) The photos you took were to dark." or "The main course was undercooked. (sob)"

I personally can't see being that hysterical because the color was a little off or the topper was not placed dead center. It sounds like she's running a scam to me...

Another thought-I am sure you are feeling beaten up by now, but this will help you in the future. You gave her a LOT of info about the financial state of your business. Whether or not you can make rent and pay employees is not her problem. And it is also something you never want a client to know about. If it's hard for you to pay the people you hired, then that is your problem for not budgeting correctly or spending beyond your means. It has nothing to do with whether or not this girl deserves a refund.
Just a thought for the future-keep your cards close to your chest type of thing.
Don't worry, though. This too shall pass and will just be a distant cringe worthy memory. We all have them.

Have you posted the pics of the cakes yet? I'm still curious and would like to see them.