I made a stupid mistake after 12 years of making wedding cakes. I mistakingly thought this weekends wedding was on Saturday but it was Friday evening. I had no cake when the bride frantically called asking where the cake was. Of course she is angry. Who wouldn't be? Before I got down to the venue to apologize and see what I could do to rectify this mistake the wedding director of the venue, whom I had never met. had gone out and purchased a cake at a local grocery store and paid for it out of her pocket. It was suggested I not talk to the bride at the moment. Today I got a call from the wedding director telling me that when she talked to the couple about billing the cake she was told to bill me. I had received a $75.00 deposit from the couple to save the date and go towards the purchase of the cake. No other compensation for the cake In a follow up email the bride told me it was only fair that I pay for the entire cake since I did not provide one.
My question is this--Do you feel I am responsible for paying for the entire cake. This poor wedding director is in the middle of this but I did not know her nor did I ask her to get a cake.There was no beforehand agreement for purchasing a cake. It was an act of kindness on her part. Bottom line is there was cake for photos and to feed the guests. Admittedly not mine.
What are your suggestions or words of advice.
Are you kidding? You forgot the wedding cake and you came here to ask what you should do?? Incredulous!! I do not bake cakes but do like to eat them, so from a consumer with an MBA, here is what I think! You should pay for the cake and send the bride a freebie of some sort, that exceeds the value of the original cake. You should also do something nice for the venue woman who saved the day! You really messed up, and honestly, if I was the bride, I would trash you on the internet on every forum, page and blog I could. This is the most important cake in a woman's life and you forgot to make it and deliver it. You also clearly have no idea what customer service is or you would know what to do and not need to post it on cake central. Once again, I am shaking my head...
failure to fulfill the terms of a contract is a breach of contact, and the injured party has legal recourse to seek either specific performance or monetary damages. Since the wedding has concluded, specific performance isn't an option. Even if you did not have an actual written contact, the law will enforce a verbal contact when evidence exists to support a contact between the parties. Reciept of her deposit is evidence of the contract.
But legalities aside, we all know the ethical thing to do is pay for the grocery store cake--and refund her deposit in full.
Wow, that is a very harsh retort to someone who has already admitted she made a mistake and is feeling bad about it!
I think you should pay for the cake. If there is any balance left from the deposit you got, return that to the bride along with a letter of apology letting her know that if in future she would consider giving you a chance to rectify the mistake, you would offer her a generous discount. Chances are she will never contact you again and you simply have to survive this unfortunate event.
I am really sorry this happened. :( Try to put procedures in place to ensure it does not happen again - reminders on your mobile, reminders by email, post-it notes -- whatever it takes! Someone else also recommended in a different post to ask the customer to ring a few days in advance to verify that all is good as this helps both parties.
Wow, that is a very harsh retort to someone who has already admitted she made a mistake and is feeling bad about it!
I think you should pay for the cake. If there is any balance left from the deposit you got, return that to the bride along with a letter of apology letting her know that if in future she would consider giving you a chance to rectify the mistake, you would offer her a generous discount. Chances are she will never contact you again and you simply have to survive this unfortunate event.
I am really sorry this happened. :( Try to put procedures in place to ensure it does not happen again - reminders on your mobile, reminders by email, post-it notes -- whatever it takes! Someone else also recommended in a different post to ask the customer to ring a few days in advance to verify that all is good as this helps both parties.
Read more at http://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/824969/wedding-cake-mistake#post_7636948#OYjgZOvPEhXtZ4dM.99
I did not get the feeling she felt bad at all, I got the feeling that she did not want to pay for the replacement cake. A cake that was needed because she did not do her job! I stand by my post and I would post this extremely egregious incident on every website, blog, forum, review and social media sites I could find! The baker could then feel bad about that!
Everyone makes mistakes. EVERYONE. This was a pretty big one but did it cause harm or damage? No. Lots of disappointment and anger? I'm sure. I would refund the deposit immediately, pay for the grocery store cake, and apologize to no end, offering a free anniversary cake or something. You obviously can't undo anything now so there is no need to make it worse. Just do your best to make things right with the bride and do everything you possibly can in the future not to repeat the mistake. HTH
First of all, you need to pay the venue coordinator, who did nothing wrong and probably saved you from having the bride rip you a new one.
Second, you need to refund the $75 the bride paid you.
Third, apologize profusely and take all responsibility since this was a big mistake and you're the one who made the mistake.
Last, look at the situation and figure out how you can prevent this from happening again.
1. Start requiring payment in full at least three weeks before. At that point you should be verifying all details of the wedding, dates, start times, etc.
2. Start keeping a big calendar where you write down said details.
3. Call the venue at the beginning of the week of the wedding to verify delivery times etc.
4. If the cake is due on Saturday, you should have it ready to be delivered and sitting in your refrigerator on Friday night. I don't understand how you didn't have anything ready if they were calling you the night before you thought it was due, since you should at least have had a cake that was baked and you could have put something together??
Pay the wedding director for the cake, refund the deposit in full to the bride and provide a written and abject apology to the bride for your mistake.
The wedding director was doing her job which was to make sure the wedding was successful and this includes fixing any mistakes from vendors.
This was your mistake, it is up to you to take full responsibility for it and if it means you have to bear the financial cost of somebody else saving your butt and fixing it, so be it.
While I was typing Costumeczar posted, and yes if the cake was due on Saturday why didn't you have the cake either finished or so close to finishing that you could have provided them with their cake or something very similar to their design.
I posed this question to validate my initial response to this ugly mistake I made. Doing the right thing is the right thing to do. Thank you all for taking the time to write your opinions and suggestions.
Agree.
Return the entire deposit with an apology note.
Pay the wedding coordinator and tip her too as she used her time and gas to save you.
I'd probably send a nice gift to the bride and groom, something from their registry.
And the cake wasn't ready on Friday for a Saturday delivery????
This nearly happened to me once. It was a Friday delivery, which I thought was for Saturday. I got one of those nagging feelings, checked my book, and sure enough I was due to deliver the cake in two hours. But the cake was baked, torted and filled, and the icing prepped. I iced it fast, pulled out all the white gp flowers I always have on hand, pulled out the airbrush, colored them and off I went. Only about 20 minutes later than my ridiculously early scheduled delivery time.
I had a wedding caketastrophe a few years ago en route to the venue. Extreme summer heat, real butter buttercream and a too small refrigerator resulted in a soft cake that crashed in my car. I called the FOB (he was the friend I secured the order from) in tears but I told him I'd get a cake to him. I called a local bakery who happened to have a cake big enough to serve 100 people. They piped filigree all over it so it looked pretty. I paid for it gladly. The bride had prepaid the entire cake I was supposed to do so I refunded that as well. I used some of the sugar flowers on the original cake to dress up the bakery cake and it looked nice. The bride was very understanding and the FOB was grateful I didn't just come in with apologies. It was an expensive lesson for me and I have not done a wedding cake since.
But I too am wondering why the cakes weren't at least baked for a next day wedding? Wow, Talk about cutting it close! My cakes would have been baked and in the freezer by Tuesday. And I would have had the majority of it...if not all...decorated by Friday night if I had a Saturday delivery. Do you bake all your cakes the day of? Because that is sure asking for trouble. Mistakes in baking, accidents, any number of things can happen when baking! Not to mention the time consuming stacking, decorating and preparing the cake for delivery! I had to replace a tier once for a cake that was due the next morning. Thank goodness I had the time to rebake!
let me preface this by saying i can understand wanting to throw money on this to put out the fire on my ego as a caker -- but this happened in a weird way --
depending on how big the cake was, how much it cost -- the caker, twocatz, is in to the bride for $75 -- the bride didn't pay for a cake unless it's a teensy one -- it's not the bride's purview to have the coordinator get paid by the caker -- oh no that's wonkyMcwonkykins --
yes there was a issue but it's not twocatz responsibility to pay the venue director for anything -- the bride owes for the cake she received -- then she can have the cakers head on a platter or whatever but the bride's not the queen or something --
what the caker should do is up for debate but jump through hoop$ the bride set up ain't one of 'em -- i think the least twocatz should do is return the $75 to the bride --
twocatz owes venue director zip
would it be nice for twocatz to pay for the cake i guess and as i said i might want to as well but not 'cause queen bee said so
Just reading this gives me an uneasy feeling. I am so sorry this happened to you. I know you are probably feeling bad already so I am not going to bash you or anything. Mistakes happen all the time. Some mistakes are minor; and others, well, not so much. Unfortunately, this happened to me but with a birthday cake and I still to this day feel bad. But it is a learning experience. If this had happened to me I would apologize, give refund back, pay the cake that was purchased to replace the cake and offer some sort of discount or complimentary future cake for her. Give her time. Time is key...and she "might" get over the missing cake dilemma.
the bride is zinging the venue director because the bride had a very bad day -- that's not right -- venue director has no business dealing with caker on this wedding --
on the other paw twocatz might want to have a relationship with this venue going forward and all the other venues this venue director knows -- so she needs to tread lightly and probably should pay up maybe --
but no it's the bride who owes the venue director for her cake -- while the bride and twocatz need to settle up --
the bride is misdirecting/dumping on the venue director and twocatz you need to watch you don't get black balled -- this is so odd
and if the venue director contacted you for payment that is the weirdest of all --
that crossed my mind, natka, but it's an interesting conundrum
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