Can't Believe They Wait 'till This Close.
Business By indydebi Updated 8 Sep 2008 , 1:00am by snarkybaker
I'm assuming by your tone that this was not a last minute wedding? When I got married, I was 18 and pregnant, and it was planned in a month. But then again, my reception was in my church basement, and my mom and aunts made all the food. It was a simple but very nice occasion.
But yeah, if they've been engaged for months and are just now getting around to shopping for a caterer, then they're seriously out of touch with reality!
i can't tell you how many calls i've had on the day of the wedding, for a wedding cake.
i was actually able to do a "day of" wedding cake once...i had the cake already baked, that a family had to cancell because of some sort of tragedy ....so i just used theirs.
I just got an inquiry for catering for a wedding ... on 9-27-08! Who waits until 21 days before their wedding to go shopping for a caterer??
And yeah....as expected, I'm already booked with two weddings that day.
This tact might work well for getting discounted (unfilled) cruise ship berths...but as they discovered it doesn't work for securing a quality caterer!
If their ONLY consideration is availability, guess they'll be able to find something.....
I just got an inquiry for catering for a wedding ... on 9-27-08! Who waits until 21 days before their wedding to go shopping for a caterer??
And yeah....as expected, I'm already booked with two weddings that day.
If you lived in MA I would start to wonder if it was my nephew, that's his wedding date 
They're last minute for EVERYTHING!
If you lived in MA I would start to wonder if it was my nephew, that's his wedding date
They're last minute for EVERYTHING!
Just goes to prove, they're everywhere!! I get them all the time too!!
This year the whole world got married on 8/8/8. We were OVERbooked on that date even before X-mas.
Apparently, everyone who chose that date thought that they were just soooo unique in doing so, because we had folks ringing up until 2 days before, wanting wedding cakes, and then being all surprised and even angry when we couldn't do it.
duh.
This year the whole world got married on 8/8/8. We were OVERbooked on that date even before X-mas.
Same with 6-7-08. I was booked on that one 18 months ahead of time (my nephew!) and turned down AT LEAST 25 brides .... most of them between Feb and June. To one bride who called me in March, I flat out told her, "Good luck in finding ANY wedding vendor open on that date at this point in time!"
I just got an inquiry for catering for a wedding ... on 9-27-08! Who waits until 21 days before their wedding to go shopping for a caterer??
And yeah....as expected, I'm already booked with two weddings that day.
Last year I had someone contact me THREE DAYS before their wedding 
(which they said they had been planning and paying for themselves for a year) but "forgot" to order the cake. 
Not to mention they wanted a highly detailed sculptured cake for the wedding! 
Sorry dude, I'm soooo booked... 
Oh, I get a ton of last minute ones and they cant seem to understand what the big deal is. They think that you can whip these things out in a day, like you just are waiting on baited breath for THEIR call and have a prebaked cake ready for them!
And its funny that some of these people are also say that "oh, thats too much money!" Then I usually tell them they can get a cake the same day at the grocery store!
People are just totally clueless!
Did they not have a caterer because they were lazy, or did something happen with their caterer? I've had two instances in my family that caused us to scramble.
#1-My country club shut down a couple of months before my reception. WTH? When's the last time you heard of a country club going bankrupt? Luckily, the dummy sales person at another CC had never erased me (penciled me in) from their book, so I had another place immediately. THANK GOD.
#2 My grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary party had like 400 people coming, and the caterer canceled on them less than a week before the party, just because she was "too stressed" to do it.
Maybe they got screwed by someone. Maybe they ARE lazy.
A few years ago Hurricane Ivan caused major flooding of rivers in our area, and you would not believe the number of poor father's coming to my hotel, literally begging us to have their daughter's wedding reception b/c their venue was flooded. We were booked ourselves, and even if we had the staff and space for them, we wouldn't have had the food for them!
This is a little off the subject...but if you aren't planning to freeze the wedding cake before you decorate it...and lets say it is a Saturday afternoon wedding...what is your timeline for baking and decorating? How far in advance can you bake the cake (without freezing), wrap in saran wrap and all that and it still taste freshly baked?
I usually bake mine on Thursday and wrap them up and freeze them overnight only for a Saturday wedding. Unless its a huge cake then I would bake it earlier in the week. But I usually try to keep it as close to the day before decorating as possible to keep things fresh.
i'd never make a wedding cake without freezing it first...to hard to handle, i freeze for at least 1 day...freezing it seems to make it moister too.
I just got an inquiry for catering for a wedding ... on 9-27-08! Who waits until 21 days before their wedding to go shopping for a caterer??
And yeah....as expected, I'm already booked with two weddings that day.
I got a call last week for a cake for the 20th. I said to her "You mean 2009, right?" she said, no, this year. I had to really stop myself from trying not to laugh. Its a large cake too..200 servings. I told her I was booked already and she even asked me what bakery to try. I told her I have no idea, most bakeries book 4-6 months before thier wedding, some even sooner. I told her to check Craigs list or Walmart..
This year the whole world got married on 8/8/8. We were OVERbooked on that date even before X-mas.
Same with 6-7-08. I was booked on that one 18 months ahead of time (my nephew!) and turned down AT LEAST 25 brides .... most of them between Feb and June. To one bride who called me in March, I flat out told her, "Good luck in finding ANY wedding vendor open on that date at this point in time!"
I never made that connection, dummy me! I had five weddings that weekend and just thought it was just another June.
I did a cake on 8-8-08 and we even put 8's all over the cake!!
This is the biggest advantage I have by having a staff. There is no way I would turn down a $900 wedding cake or $5,000 worth of catering. I can do an event that size with 3 days notice. We have four weddings for that Saturday and two for the Sunday, but you bet in this economy I'd work late and pay a couple of bakers overtime for that kind of paycheck.
People have come to me with pretty big orders on short notice relatively frequently, and the most frequent reason I get is that they " just didn't like that other baker."
When's the last time you heard of a country club going bankrupt?
Had a friend who worked in the office at a country club and she would laugh about how "those country club types" just didnt' impress her at all ... because her job was to TRY to collect the country club dues from them every month! She said "Those rich snobs are the biggest deadbeats I've ever seen!"
...... and the caterer canceled on them less than a week before the party, just because she was "too stressed" to do it.
OMG my mouth dropped open on this one!!
So Deb.....are you actually going to do this last minute cake? Will there still be room in your kitchen for me??
I have you down for the 18th .... tell me I've got the date right!!
THe big challenge I have with that week is a college hired me for their cookies-n-punch reception and I need to make 1700 cookies for their event on the 20th. If I can get 35 cookies on a tray each time, it will take 50 trays to get these all baked. Plus a cocktail reception for a large dept store plus a wedding cake to drop off plus a drop off catering.
This is the biggest advantage I have by having a staff. There is no way I would turn down a $900 wedding cake or $5,000 worth of catering. I can do an event that size with 3 days notice. We have four weddings for that Saturday and two for the Sunday, but you bet in this economy I'd work late and pay a couple of bakers overtime for that kind of paycheck.
People have come to me with pretty big orders on short notice relatively frequently, and the most frequent reason I get is that they " just didn't like that other baker."
My problem isn't getting the cake done...I have done 20 cakes in a week no problem. I have other issues, like delivery times, and so many times these people don't want just a simple little buttercream cake. They want 100 gum paste flowers that you don't have time to make OR get shipped to you. I wish we had better local resources for these kinds of things. I wish i could afford a delivery person!!
But shoot, if you can take last minute wedding cakes, I will start sending them your way!!
BTW, I sent cha couple of celebration cakes for the week before labor day (we went out of town and took the weekend off!) One of them was delighted to find a bakery in Chapel Hill! I hope she gave ya a call...do you guys by any chance do glutenfree cakes? I have been getting a ton of calls for those and coordinated cakes isn't taking any more orders... (Sorry, should have made that part PM!)
This is the biggest advantage I have by having a staff. There is no way I would turn down a $900 wedding cake or $5,000 worth of catering. I can do an event that size with 3 days notice. We have four weddings for that Saturday and two for the Sunday, but you bet in this economy I'd work late and pay a couple of bakers overtime for that kind of paycheck.
People have come to me with pretty big orders on short notice relatively frequently, and the most frequent reason I get is that they " just didn't like that other baker."
My problem isn't getting the cake done...I have done 20 cakes in a week no problem. I have other issues, like delivery times, and so many times these people don't want just a simple little buttercream cake. They want 100 gum paste flowers that you don't have time to make OR get shipped to you. I wish we had better local resources for these kinds of things. I wish i could afford a delivery person!!
But shoot, if you can take last minute wedding cakes, I will start sending them your way!!
BTW, I sent cha couple of celebration cakes for the week before labor day (we went out of town and took the weekend off!) One of them was delighted to find a bakery in Chapel Hill! I hope she gave ya a call...do you guys by any chance do glutenfree cakes? I have been getting a ton of calls for those and coordinated cakes isn't taking any more orders... (Sorry, should have made that part PM!)
Thanks for the referral! We weren't super busy over Labor Day, and honestly nobody mentined being referred from another baker except the woman who wanted 200 petit fours with two days notice for less than $500...I was thinking no wonder Lorie didn't want to handle that one.
We do both gluten free and sugar free. We can do peanut free, but not tree nut free.One of the bakers that works for me is a certified master baker with an emphasis on dietary restrictions. We also have some totally decent vegan recipes.
We cut off the weekend at 2000 servings of cake, since we have all the retail to get done ( about $1500-$2000 a day), and we don't delivery orders under $350 more than 5 miles away, which is pretty easy with 3 hotels less than two miles away from the store, along with about 5 other large party venues. The deliveries are a pain, and my husband gets totally stressed out carrying wedding cakes.
We do keep a pretty big back stock of gumpaste flowers, and of course, I am virtually next door to a florist who will get me fresh flowers at wholesale.
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