you may want to alter the wording to indicate that other baked goods at the venue are OK, but they must be clearly labeled.
...and if the other family member's/company's item isn't clearly labeled??? Let's beat this dead horse a little more. Poor horse! 
I really can understand both sides of this issue.
you may want to alter the wording to indicate that other baked goods at the venue are OK, but they must be clearly labeled.
...and if the other family member's/company's item isn't clearly labeled???
Easy remedy, just bring some blank tent cards and a marker with you to the venue. Consider the alternative with the original wording of the clause: Grandma has to get rid of her cake or you pack up your cake and leave.
It may sound ridiculous, but it speaks to the primary reason some cake professionals put this clause in their contracts: they don't want people at the event assuming they made some ugly-ass cake that was actually brought by a guest.
The wording of the clause being discussed in this thread forces the bride to choose between serving the wedding cake they ordered or the family member's cake. The alternate wording I proposed (ensuring both cakes are clearly labeled) avoids a potentially disastrous situation at the venue and still addresses the cake professional's concerns.
Unless there are other concerns besides the potential for confusion that aren't being discussed here.
It may sound ridiculous, but it speaks to the primary reason some cake professionals put this clause in their contracts: they don't want people at the event assuming they made some ugly-ass cake that was actually brought by a guest.
Unless there are other concerns besides the potential for confusion that aren't being discussed here.
That would be my reason for not doing it! Ugly-ass cake indeed!
Personally, I think the contract sounds harsh and doesn't allow for flexibility. Quite frankly, I don't understand (other than health reasons) what the problem is with family or friends providing additional cakes/desserts, etc. Maybe the bride and groom WANT grandma to make the groom's cake because it is the groom's favorite cake.
I'm doing a wedding next weekend. I have the wedding cake and the groom's cake. I also work. I'm THANKFUL that the MOB is doing individual sock it to me cakes for the bridal table and the great aunt is doing decorated cookies. It's a family affair!
In December I've been asked to do the groom's cake for a friend and a professional in town is doing the wedding cake. We've known each other for years and there is no problem. Guess it's a "small town" mentality.
Let me make this plain: I do not bake professionally and I do not charge for my cakes. They are my gift to the bride and groom.
To the OP: Good Luck! There are lots of good ideas here. I'm sure you will find an appropriate solution for your bakery.
Happy Baking!
Personally, I think the contract sounds harsh and doesn't allow for flexibility. Quite frankly, I don't understand (other than health reasons) what the problem is with family or friends providing additional cakes/desserts, etc. Maybe the bride and groom WANT grandma to make the groom's cake because it is the groom's favorite cake.
I'm doing a wedding next weekend. I have the wedding cake and the groom's cake. I also work. I'm THANKFUL that the MOB is doing individual sock it to me cakes for the bridal table and the great aunt is doing decorated cookies. It's a family affair!
In December I've been asked to do the groom's cake for a friend and a professional in town is doing the wedding cake. We've known each other for years and there is no problem. Guess it's a "small town" mentality.
Let me make this plain: I do not bake professionally and I do not charge for my cakes. They are my gift to the bride and groom.
To the OP: Good Luck! There are lots of good ideas here. I'm sure you will find an appropriate solution for your bakery.
Happy Baking!
Like Jason, I appreciate the intent of a sole source clause and agree that the enforcement is going to cause way more ill will toward your business than putting your cake next to a catastrophe of a cake made by someone else.
If remove a cake that you have been paid for at one of the reception sites near us, you just landed on their "do not allow" list and that is the last time you will ever deliver to that site (unless you keep changing your company name). 
They don't care what your contract says and they don't care about the principles involved (unless you haven't been paid). And of course then comes the bride's reviews on all over the web stating how you ruined her wedding.
I totally get it from a baker's prospective and concede that the potential exists that allowing a second source could affect your reputation, but removing a paid cake for another contract breach will absolutely have a negative impact on your business.
Ideally, the clause is enough to make certain that it never happens.
Those of you who have this clause...
It just does not seem right to sell and deliver your cookies where someone else made the cake, and at the same time not allow someone else to sell and deliver cookies where YOU made the cake.
Do you refuse to sell your cookies, etc to the wedding party if someone else is making the wedding cake?
Those of you who have this clause...
It just does not seem right to sell and deliver your cookies where someone else made the cake, and at the same time not allow someone else to sell and deliver cookies where YOU made the cake.
Do you refuse to sell your cookies, etc to the wedding party if someone else is making the wedding cake?
Yes.
Yes, this is an insurance issue. I knew a lady who said, "I must have gotten some bad popcorn last night. I got up and was so sick this morning!" I asked her what she did last night. They went out drinking with friends. "What were you drinking?" I asked.
"Singapore Slings and Seven-sevens," she replied. 
Ri-i-i-i-i-i-ght ..... it was the POPCORN that made her sick!
My point is that people dont' KNOW what made them sick. They just know they are. And they are NOT going to sue gramma or Aunt Sally. They are going to sue the legitimate business owner (because god knows we business owners have nothing but tons of money laying around doing nothing!)
In reference to the "high falutin'" weddings comment, I do understand what you are saying, but you make your own point when you say doing it as a business is MUCH different than just having a family pitch in. Odds are good if anyone's potato salad is tainted, no one is suing Aunt Sally (poor aunt sally! I pick on her SO much!). But put a professional caterer in there, and the lawyer's phones are ringing off the hook! (see my potato salad story on the other thread where the caterer lost her biz and her home over a potato salad she did NOT make.)
In the catering world, it's standard procedure to prohibit outside food. Even the hotels in my area won't let gramma bring in a cake unless gramma can show it was made in a legal licensed kitchen. I know this to be true because I've let caker(s) use my kitchen for this purpose.
And as a former professional caterer, I am slightly offended that just because someone pays to have their food prepared instead of leaching off of the family to get it done, DOESN'T make the wedding "high falutin'." I've been a guest at many a family pitch in wedding reception that would put "catered" receptions to shame. What a shame there's a stereotype roaming around that assumes anyone who pays for catered food is super rich and falutin'. I really hope that's not what you actually meant. 
Those of you who have this clause...
It just does not seem right to sell and deliver your cookies where someone else made the cake, and at the same time not allow someone else to sell and deliver cookies where YOU made the cake.
Do you refuse to sell your cookies, etc to the wedding party if someone else is making the wedding cake?
Yes.
Thank you, Costumeczar.
THAT I can respect.
Those of you who have this clause...
It just does not seem right to sell and deliver your cookies where someone else made the cake, and at the same time not allow someone else to sell and deliver cookies where YOU made the cake.
Do you refuse to sell your cookies, etc to the wedding party if someone else is making the wedding cake?
Yes.
Thank you, Costumeczar.
THAT I can respect.
But I also don't bother to put the sole source clause in my contract, because as I said before, I think it's pretty unenforceable. I just decide who to sell to, so if I don't do the wedding cake then I don't do anything else for the reception. I'll do a cake at the rehearsal, just not at the reception.
Thank you Indydebi! All of the weddings in our family are "self catered" because my family loves to cook, and it is a delicious, formal event. Even though my bakery is opening in three weeks, I would like to point something out. All of the cakes at these weddings were professionally baked by an outside source, and in a huge family, we have never gone without a cake. So there must be enough flexible bakery owners out there that will bake a cake for a family-catered wedding. But on the other hand, as a bakery owner, it is a tough situation.
I have a sole source requirement in my contract. It allows the customer to bring in another cake " by prior agreement". North Carolina has ridiculously low standards for home bakers, and I have a health department inspected, licensed kitchen. There is a difference in the sanitation standards of my kitchen and the average home baker, and if someone get salmonella from a poorly made IMBC, I most certainly am not going to be taken to court, and because I am the " business" with the " deep pockets", I am the one that a lawyer will encourage someone to sue over a home baker, who most likely doesn't have a 3 million dollar liability policy.
I have cancelled orders for groom's cakes that are to be delivered to weddings where we aren't making the cake, and weren't notified at the time of purchase.
This discussion has been very helpful, believe it or not. I've changed the wording in my contract to reflect more flexibility. I have now allowed "previously" agreed upon items due to allergy or special diets, that must come from a licensed facility.
I still have the sole source requirement, but hopefully it will be more realistic and allow brides to have an open discussion with me about their needs and help them to realize the importance of a licensed baker providing quality goods for their event.
I too have wondered on this. Ugly ass isn't my concern, nasty ass is. I have been to weddings where the cake tastes like rancid shortening. I guess my biggest concern would be someone getting sick from someone else's food & blaming me. Indydebi, how can they prove it if they don't have a food sample to be analyzed? And here in the south groom's cakes are very popular--so would Aunt Sally be allowed to "gift" the groom cake if I supplied the main cake? I'm sure it would be to save money. Consumers probably don't see the baker's POV, but I wouldn't want to be known as the B*$@h either
I can see both sides of the argument
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%