sometimes i really want to inform clients - Page 4

im the opposite - heck i can remember the cake from hubbys best buddys wedding 11yrs ago but i cant remember the style of the brides dress or what colour bridesmaids wore..... in fact as they seperated within a year of the wedding it actually took me a minute or 2 to remember the brides name but i remember the cake, pretty sure i ate at least 2 slices of it too

you know I actually have a GREAT BTB and GTB story. I have a bride and groom scheduled for a May 22nd wedding and the way they determined their budget on things like cake, food, hall, favors, etc. was they each made a list of the top 3 most important things to THEM on their wedding day.

Then they sat down with both lists and said #1-Has to be achieved, #2-we should REALLY try to achieve, #3 would be nice to achieve.

Her list was as follows- #1-dress
#2-cake
#3-food

His list was #1-2 guests who were dear to him that couldn't afford to come out of state

#2- good food
#3- he didn't care! lol

So they took their budget and determined the most money would be budgeted for flying in and housing the GTB 2 good friends and for her dress.

Then they allocated the next largest sum to the food and cake!

They wound up getting the back room of their FAVORITE italian restaurant (the restaurant is providing the food) and the restaurant is allowing them the use of the room, tables, linens, silveryware, etc. at no charge above and beyond the food (which is their favorite food)

They ordered a smallish cake........enough to serve about 100 ppl.

But I thought it was so cool that they really went into the wedding planning knowing what was MOST important to each of them!!

Oh and they're not charging their guests for a thing! lol Including allowing guests to order what they want at the restaurant (the restaurant quoted them a per person charge that covers anything on their menu, very cool)

I worked for a bakery that did my daughter's wedding cake (score..discount!!). Part of my duties was tastings. I would sit with the bride and sometimes her entire wedding party. One of the first questions I would ask is if there would be additional food and drink served at the reception and if so, what kind?

If the answer was yes then we'd have a better idea of how much cake to prepare. The more food (heavy appetizers or full meals) and alcohol served, the less cake people will eat and the less the emphasis is on the cake. The bride can budget for a beautiful smaller cake and if she is still worried about quantity, she can have sheet cakes at the ready (less expensive) to fill in.

My daughter's cake was beautiful and yummy and I thought we had about the right amount, but our catered food was so delicious and the signature cocktails were so popular, we ended up with a ton of cake left. Not because it wasn't delicious (boy was it ever), but because everyone had filled up on our other goodies.

When cake is the primary food, then the bride had better budget more for that than just about anything beyond her dress and reception venue because that is what people will be remembering. Practically everyone who was at my daughter's wedding raved about the catered food...but many had bypassed the cake just for that reason!

Those that did eat the cake were duly impressed... but it was not the star of the reception. The cake's design was however noticed and appreciated more than it's consumption. Thank goodness for my employee discount!

Ok, actually, I DO make wedding potatoes! Not to be argumentative at all, I totally agree with the point of what was said, but I have a dish that I actually call "Wedding Potatoes"! Just thought that was funny.

I catered my own wedding, did all the decorations, cake, everything with a little help from my mom and sister. I did it on a shoestring budget, only invited about 75 people, but my MIL to be supplied me with a list of people that I was supposed to invite on HER behalf. One of them was her daughters old college roommate. Her excuse was that these people had invited her to their kids weddings, and the roommate hadn't been seen in a while, it would be a good chance to get back in touch for SIL. Are you effing joking? At one point I had to tell her that this was MY wedding.

But about five years after my wedding I bumped into someone that had been there, and she smiled and said, "You know what I remember about your wedding? The food! That was the first wedding I had been to where all the food was actually delicious!" Then she blushed and mumbled something about how I had looked beautiful of course. Blah, don't lie to me, the food was GOOD! I should know, I made it!! That doesn't offend me.

I am wicked irritated by people who try to make a wedding a chance to cash in. Dollar dances, selling kisses, T-A-C-K-Y. I mean, we're already giving you gifts that YOU picked out! But I'm also saddened by people who spend so much on their wedding that they start their marriage with 50k of debt and nothing to show for it but a marriage license. I think in general we all need to learn to live within our means. (P.S. That means ME too!)

Ok, I have a story.

A couple of years ago, DH's good friend got married. The wedding was nice, reception was beautiful, food was good, but no cake. I figured they'd have a dessert table, no biggie.

Come to find out (from the wedding planner, where my in-laws were seated), the bride decided not to have cake because she's diabetic. Anyway, the dessert was Banana's Foster (GAG! I HATE HATE HATE bananas as a dessert, with my only exception being warm banana bread).

I figured, "Well, ok. Odd, but ok."

Until I saw the giant piece of chocolate cake sitting on a plate, untouched, in front of the bride's seat.

Then I got mad. I about walked over to the table at the end of the night and grabbed the plate.

I just wanted some cake, really.

Odd. Perhaps someone at the venue figured there must be cake somewhere at a wedding and tried to help by putting a slice at the brides place?

Nope, it was for her. This bride had been diagnosed as Type II diabetic about two years prior (unusual for her age, as she was in her mid-20s), but she cheated all the time.

She tended to use her diabetes as an excuse to do what she wanted. If she didn't want to have a cake for her guests, that's fine, but admit to it! Don't hide behind the excuse when it was clearly that.

Oh well. I'm over it. Maybe. A little bit. Ok, might still be a tad bitter.....

I was diagnosed a few months before turning 29, just a few months before my wedding. I still had cake. I wasn't even a caker then, but it wasn't a yes or no thing. Weddings have cakes. Correction... GOOD weddings have cake. Hehehe. It's not JUST about the bride... it's about one of the few things that people truly expect at a wedding. If there hadn't been cake, I'd have been rended limb from limb I'm certain. I don't blame you from being bitter!

By the way, type 2 diabetes sucks monkey!! I can't eat all the stuff I make! Sure, little bites of 'cheat' here and there, but since my body can't process sugar, more than a bite and I'm sick as heck. Ok, on the grand scale, it's not the 'worst that could happen' but once upon a time I thought that if I coudn't eat sugar I'd surely die! What saved me was that I found out that if I didn't eat sugar, I didn't have to be fat. It really took years for a competent doctor to figure this out? So now I have a human's body and just look at the pretty cakes. I guess it's a fair trade. (Maybe? )

I design invitations and announcements and did a wedding invitation for a couple last year. They ordered 150 invitations and what shocked me the most was that they insisted that I put "no boxed gifts" at the bottom of the reception information. I had never heard of doing something like that.

I hear you! I've seen my mom struggle for decades with her weight and then for the last few years with diabetes (Type II, hits every generation). I have to be careful now, or pay the price later.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off topic!

Me neither, sorry! I know this thread isn't about that. Back to rude brides!! Wait, maybe diabetes is more fun to talk about...

Well Im sure you've heard of the "A" and "B" list that is popular now. I think that is incredibly tacky as well. People now a days have no manners and clue. Half the time they're so busy trying to out do the Jones that they they dont consider peoples feelings or etiquette or what they have money for. You see wedding planners going threw the envelopes of money from their guests to pay for the vendors they used and couldnt afford.

In my opinion it should be about the marriage not about the extravagance. If your want your wedding to be Platinum and you have a minimal budget you invite the people you can afford to invite.

Most people do not get offended if their not invited to a wedding. Especially when its intimate family involved. Whats offending is when you invite every person you came in contact with and then give them a slap in the face for showing up. (ie: no food, drink). So doing it smaller will make the people you do invite feel special because their treated as GUESTS, not present donors!

Ive had my share of people that want a bargain cake and have a million dollar cake in mind. I had one family that wanted a three tiered cake, sheet cakes for 300 guests and wanted only to spend $200. They wanted to omit fillings, frostings and anything they possibly could to get that price.

They didnt care if it sacrificed taste or looks. I gave them what I could and because of the distance and temperature out I gave them more than what they paid for because I didnt want to sacrifice my reputation for the sake of their budget.

And in the end I didnt even get a thank you out of it. Lesson learned, wont do that again. So in the beginning I should of said this "Your budget is $200 and being that your wedding is in the middle of August and the venue is 2 hours away from me I do not feel comfortable not putting fondant on your cake. Red designs on buttercream in the heat will run which will look a mess by the time I get the cake there. I suggest that you do this.... for this price". And then stick to my guns!

I have to admit.....I didn't have a wedding cake at our reception. It wasn't that I didn't want one, it's just that we had been to about eight weddings over the previous year and every cake was AWFUL!!! This was way before I knew anything about cake, baking, decorating, etc. Those were the only weddings I had ever attended and some were quite expensive, so I just assumed all wedding cakes tasted horrible.

We were married in Hershey, PA, so a friend and I worked for days baking tons of the PB Blossom cookies (with the Hershey's kiss on them), and had those instead of cake. If only I'd known there were delicious tasting wedding cakes available!!

Oh, and we only had 50 people to our wedding, so we could do it "right" on our budget.

Kathi

Ah, but you didn't have a different dessert for you and your husband, did you? That was my issue! lol