I had this happen this week and am just wondering what type of backup measures you have in place for your orders if you get sick. I was supposed to do a birthday cake for tomorrow, and yesterday I spiked a really high fever and it wiped me out, and I still feel awful today. Fortunately, I have a friend from church who does cakes and she's doing it for me. I gave her what I'd already baked and she's baking the last tier and decorating today.

Anyone can do a birthday cake, but what if it was a wedding cake or something really elaborate? What do you do??

ASuck it up and do it anyway. Unless it's a stomach bug, then I don't know what I'd do - never had it happen.

AIt's usually a good idea to develop a network of reputable licensed cake decorators in your area ahead of time so you can hand off an order if there is an emergency.

Just went through that recently - it's really grueling to keep going when you're sick.

About a year ago I had a stomach thing and there was no way I could work. We found people to do the cakes, but one of them upgraded the cake because she just couldn't imagine charging that much for cake and not have the customer getting a lot more than what she was going to get from me. It just goes to show that even smacking someone in the face with the fact that she's undercharging doesn't work. Explaining this to her was like trying to have a conversation with a cat. I lost that customer who no doubt was grateful to have been saved from my "overcharging".

The moral is don't get sick.

I made friends with a few other local decorators, we have an arrangement that if one gets sick/has an emergency, we will cover for them. We match each others prices in these cases, and don't make any changes to the order. (Howseet, I would have been SO mad!)
It might mean taking a bit of a loss, but in the long run it's worth it, it's saved all of us at least once.

I have some serious health issues that land me in the hospital now and then, I have been very lucky in that it always seems to happen the beginning of the week, lol. If it's not bad enough for the hospital, I suck it up and make myself work anyway. I haven't been 'contagious' sick since H1N1 first hit, thank goodness, but I wouldn't even consider working on someone's cake if I was.