RisqueBusiness, for the record, I think you have the wrong bride, there was a forum thread a few weeks ago that said...I do not want to be one of "those" brides...but that was not this bride...perhaps I am missing something cause i didnt go back and read all the posts....but I think there is some confusion there. I do not think anorris3 is at fault in any way.....just my opinion...and I hope she gets resolution soon.

I have to say that you are dealing with this in the most graceful, patient manner. By the way, your wedding photos are gorgeous!!!

Wedding cake is important. It is NEVER the bride's fault if the cake is horrible or undercooked. It is the BAKER'S fault. It doesn't matter how much it cost or what the final agreement was. I hightly doubt that anywhere in the contract did it say, "It is not the baker's fault if I run out of time or don't have the skills to pull this together and it is not edilble."

Hopefully the baker will be just as gracious as you are and refund your money and PROFUSELY apologize.

Congratulations on your wedding!!
Angie

anorris3 - Kudos to you on how you are handling this!! It's not often that someone can be so understanding when something goes wrong! I do hope you can work something out with the decorator, at the least a partial refund. It's good to see you aren't letting this ruin your wedding day!! I wish you and your husband all the best!!!

Keep us updated!!

Lol, I guess I just openned a can of WHUP BEHIND on myself.

I played the devils advocate....

I never SAID the bride had a poor attitude, I know she researched carefully and knew exactly what she wanted...IF it's the same bride that I'm thinking about!!!! ( remember that thread??) I seemed to recall that she had a cake in mind...something like 5 tiers of cake for not too much money...

I know that as bakers we LOVE to give our customers what they ask for, including myself!!! and sometimes there are things that we cannot do! INCLUDING myself!!!

(I suck at making the little people that go on the cake, so I have made a choice to eighter find someone to teach me or not make them anymore..I don't like the way mine look. THAT'S ME taking responsibility!!)

And the reason I posted about the fingers...is that sometimes, brides will blow their budgets on other things and then when it comes to the cake, they skimp...they want a cake on the same grand scale as their wedding but expect it for almost nothing.

There HAS to be more respect for cake decorators out there! I find that A LOT in my field!

( I was asked to judge a local IRON CHEF competition and I was the only non culinary chef there, and they kinda left me out of the mix after they found out I was a Pastry Chef!! I guess since I wasn't running my own restaurant, I didn't count..lol Yet they ate my almond cake!! lol)

anyway, going back to my post...I didn't post my opinion to incense anyone, just giving you all my POV as a wedding cake decorator ( the reasons I just mentioned are why I refuse to do wedding cakes anymore!! )

When we pay top dollar for an item, we have certain expectations! When we purchase quality we expect quality....

When we buy a cheap knock off or imitation...we take our chances.

YES, it was the BAKERS fault for taking on more than they could handle, but..........I think it's a 50/50 blame.

and I say again, the BRIDE HAS been nothing but gracious, under pressure.

I know for a fact that no matter WHO'S fault it was...if it where MY cake at MY wedding I'd be a freaked out mess!!!

I admire greatly the bride in this case! So PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE....you all, don't get your knickers so twisted!! lol

I do agree there are always 3 sides to every story.
I am also a big time believer in relationships for instance, both parties are always responsible.

However, in the case of getting this wedding cake for 350 - it was agreed upon price. By both parties. There is no reasonable person that would say, well because I'm only charging 1.50 per slice, this cake can look like shit and she can't complain.
Example, we took my mother out for her birthday one year to a revolving restaurant. Expensive restaurant, lovely view., The food was AWFUL. freezer burned vegetables and a few other things. Ok we know that when we go up there it's expensve and we're paying for the view but there is no reasonable restaurant owner or chef who can say well it's ok then if the food isnt totally edible. I've also eaten at cheapo restaurants and gotten fabulous meals.
Eitehr way there is the expectation that you get something edible. This cake wasnt edible. Whether she was paying 1.50 per slice or 4 dollars per slice, nobody hands it over in that condition and can get away with putting some of the blame on her (we're using the champagne on a beer budget example even if it's not true). Less flowers or glitter or more simple maybe yes. Undercooked with gobs of icing to hide the fact? Not a chance.
We've all had business dealings with people with varied levels of experience. And we've done jobs of various kinds throughout our lives and started at the bottom also obvoiusly and worked our way up the learning curve.
Whatever level of experience, when you screw up, you make right. You dont say, well here I am just starting out here so this undercooked cake is acceptable for the price you paid. Had you paid more maybe I would have made you an edible cake. LOL

I'm anxious to hear what happened. I think the baker had to know something was wrong for there to be THAT much icing on there.

In regards to who's at fault, in this case I think it's clearly the baker. Now, while I might not expect a perfectly decorated cake for $1.50 a slice, I certainly expect it to be cooked! And I certainly expect people to own up to such mistakes. It's always worse when you try to cover something up.

I've had a couple of times where I thought I wouldn't get a cake done for whatever reason and If I had to, I would go to the grocery store and buy the people a cake, not charge them, and apologize profusely.

I too would like to know the outcome of this. I am a bride to be, and just starting the wilton classes...maybe I will make my own cake after hearing about this (assuming I am able to decorate a beautiful cake).

Bravo to this bride, who has not flipped out, and has been handling this matter with high class. I, on the otherhand, while I'm not a bridezilla, and I would not yell, I would have deffinatly cried about the cake had it not been cooked, and then probably demanded a refund of my money....in the nicest way possible, of course.

I would be shocked if this baker did not offer a full refund of the money. She would loose more money in lost business referrals than loosing the $350 for this cake.

Plain and simple .....the baker messed up...SHE UNDERCOOKED, UNDERBAKED AND OVERFROSTED THE CAKE trying to compensate for the mess she had made....yes she knew and she's is the only one at fault...and if she has any kind diginity what so ever, she should be picking up the phone upon returning from "vacation" to followup with the event...You know hopefully calling to get feed back as to how things went....

Just me opinion like everyone elses....

Keep on baking....

Cindy

Sooooooo ... have you heard anything yet? You had mentioned that the baker was going to be back yesterday (9/11), so I really hope she has gotten in touch with you by now. I'm anxious to hear what happened!!!

I probably don't have the update you all are looking for but I didn't want to leave you hanging. She called Monday morning to ask about how things went. I have had some unfortunate circumstances at home so I just flat out told her that the cake wasn't fully cooked and we threw the majority of it away. I told her it wasn't a priority at the time to talk about it and I would have to get back to her. She seemed somewhat surprised but this is just me reading her over the telephone. She told me to call back when I got a chance to straighten it out. I just tried calling her and got voicemail.

I never imagined this post would gain the attention that it has. But to respond to several posts,

I am not the other bride that someone made reference to. I was a budget bride with an even more budget groom so we did look for someone on the lower price end. I did however several months ago ask about pricing cakes. And I believe you can check my posts if anyone is that interested.

I appreciate someone playing the "devil's advocate." This sometimes brings to light perspectives I may not have thought about. And while some may not agree, I believe I am partially at fault for this as well. I knew when I signed the contract with the cake lady that she had minimal experience with wedding cakes (she sells mostly cakes to business at wholesale). I assumed this may be a problem when it came to decorating not necessarily the taste or outcome of the cake itself. But she hired a decorator to assist her. And she also showed me pictures of a cake she had recently done the exact same size as mine and everything turned out well. The cake was also baked from scratch as well so this may have been a contributing factor as someone had mentioned.

So I hope to have a final update for you all very soon. Thanks again for the advice.

Girl, I'm so sorry about your cake, but you look positively fab in your pics.

anorris you said...

If you even had any fault (which I'm not convinced of) it would be that you trusted her to make your wedding cake.
I think it's possible that she may have mis-represented herself, especially if she said she had minimal experience and her definition of minimal was ZERO experience...if that's the case you couldn't have known.
I hope you are able to get in contact with her and not her voicemail -best of luck, and don't admit fault to her - wedding cake or not, if she is capable of making cakes for businesses, then she should know if it was cooked or not!
The only thing that sets a wedding cake apart from any other style of cake is simply the designs/decorations and how it's assembled...not how it's made.
Regardless of whether you were on a budget or not, is not the point. The point is simply that you trusted her to do your cake, and she missed the mark.
I'm wondering how many people would be pointing the finger at you or the baker if this had been a birthday cake or some other sort. I would guess the baker.

I dont think you are fault either, as you said, I would have assumed that the risk I was taking was on the overall look of the cake....not the actual cake itself....especially if she sells cakes to businesses!

I hope whatever else has happened lately (the unfortunate circumstances) have resolved itself for you so you can concentrate on being the happy new bride!

Came back into the thread to see what happened, Sorry to hear that you are having some issues at home.

But, as soon as you k now....please update...as you can see..

A lot of people are waiting with baited breath..lol

Okay so we finally talked. This was by far the hardest conversation I have had to have in a long time. It was very sad. I feel horrible and I know I shouldn't. But she is much like most of you who wants her cakes to be perfect and to here that it was far from that seemed to crush her. I am so glad I didn't have to do it in person because it would have been some big cry fest.
Short story is that she is refunding half and makng us a make up 9" cake. Long story is that she felt horrible that it turned out the way that it did. She said she tested the cakes to make sure that the were done and they were. The conclusion that she came to is that it must be her method for simple syrup that she puts on after it comes out of the oven. Someone mentioned this in the thread. I am not at all familiar with this.
She said the reason for all the icing is that they were trying to even out the layers and she felt it was better to add icing to one layer rather than take cake off another. She didn't explain all the icing on the groom's cake though.
She also said she had had some problems in the past with her white cake recipe with other customers but once she explained to them the simple syrup they seemed to understand. In my case I don't think simple syrup can be used as an adequate justification.
And she did throw the ball in my court as for what to do. I told her that a partial refund and maybe a small cake would be good. She agreed and at some point in the conversation she even offered to give me a full refund.
She did say at some point when we were discussing options that I had gotten a real good price on my cakes due to her earlier miscalculations and that she put several hours into decorating the cake. I believe this was a slight attempt to negotiate something.
My final thoughts about it is that she just got in over her head. I truely believe she put a lot of time, stress, and money into the cakes and they just didn't turn out. Her lack of experience with wedding cakes is probably the reason her solution (other than adding lots of icing) wasn't better. I wish I had the perfect solution to this situation but I don't. I am just glad its over.
I am adding some pictures of the cake before we cut it. The wedding cake was a "crossword puzzle" theme - that is what my husband and I did when we were first getting to know each other and the obvious Yankees grooms cake. Enjoy and I wish all of you the best of luck with baking and pray that none of you have to experience anything like this.

Well I'll just cross my fingers for you that the makeup cake will look and taste good -and be thoroughly baked. I'm still thinking it wasn't cooked all the way. I don't think simple syrup could cause a cake to look so dense that it resembles a cheesecake...unless the cake absorbed so much that it became gooey...maybe her simple syrup recipe isn't the greatest?

Her reasoning for using SO mcuh frosting is unusual IMO. Oh well I know you probably would love to put this thread to bed, so I'm glad that you got a little bit of a refund -maybe you could splurge and go to dinner at a fancy restaurant?

i think you are handleing this very well. i would have been very angry.

I will reiterate what I Said earlier either in this thread or elsewhere. There is no such thing as 'perfect' - mistakes happen. The 'perfect' business person is not someone who never screws up an order. It's someone who knows how to make right when they do. I'm glad you got SOME resolution out of this. After reading your post about what her explanations were, I WOULD have been inclined to accept a partial refund if that were me but the fact that this had happened before or she mentioned having problems before.
The especially big thing that she said to you that made me go is that she said you got a deal anyway. And as Newlyweds mentioned about budget or no budget not being the issue., I agree 100%. It's not like you buy a shirt at JC Penneys for 20 dollars and expect it to last, vs buying a 2 dollar shirt at the secondhand store and expecting it to have holes or fall apart. Budget for a wedding cake to me, the difference in quality would be like buying a cake decorator's cake vs buying a Walmart or commercially/massproduced prefrozen variety. The end result should still be edible. Plain and simple. I have no experience in cake design from a business aspect but I speak from other professional design experience. If a client says I only have x amount of dollars to spend on a website, there is absolutely no logic for me to conclude that he or she should get a nonfunctioning site, or less than functioning because he or she paid less. If the budget is smaller, we work with a simpler /less fancy design. Simple.
And Anorris, the devils advocate is important I agree. There is also quite possibly more to this than we've gotten. But that would not affect the fact that this person did not deliver on a basic expected standard of quality.

I say all this. not to jump down the throat of someone who supposedly had no idea and to get on the stone throwing bandwagon that sometimes happens when someone is done wrong by, but to point out that a person who doesnt follow that simple business rule is going to soon find themselves out of business.

I'm sorry that you are so distraught about all of this. I'm glad that you were able to talk to the baker and get things somewhat resolved. I think it was unprofessional of her to tell you that you got a deal (after all, it was she who miscalculated), and I also still feel about ALL of that icing, but I'm glad that you are finally going to be able to put this behind you. I can't understand the simple syrup concept, and it's situations like this that really make me question it. But I also know that some people use it with great success. I think that your "before cutting" pictures of the cakes look great. The wedding cake crossword puzzle theme is very creative and certainly was special for you and your husband. I only wish the cakes could have been as great on the inside as they were on the outside. I would like to reiterate that I don't believe you have ANY fault in any of this. You paid a professional for a product, and that product fell far short of your expectations. Regardless of her experience with wedding cakes, she took your order and money, and assured you that the cake would be good. Thanks for giving us your update. I hope your issues at home are able to be resolved soon.

Well done anorris, you have dealt with this with a great amount of dignity and I pray that other people will be as accommodating of you if you ever find yourself in the wrong. All the best in your marriage and God's blessings on you and yours.

Well...wow.

I certainly can empathize with both the (very) gracious bride and the inexperienced baker on this one.

I'm in agreement with everyone here that the baker probably was as freaked out over her work on the cake as the bride was. She was most likely in knots waiting for the phone to ring--and also most likely praying someone would give a (false) "positive."

I'm in freak-land right now over the cake I'm doing this weekend. Even though I know from personal experience that a result like Anorris3 got won't be happening with my cakes! My personal angst over cakes usually comes from the "decorating" issues instead of the "taste/texture" ones.

Sad thing about all this is, at the end of the day? The big thing Anorris3 and much of her wedding party/guests may remember is the cake. Or lack thereof, in this case.

If I were the baker, I'd give a full 50% refund by cashier's check via USPS. That way, there's no uncomfortable "face to face." And I would hope my name would fade into obscurity, and that I hadn't passed out a tremendous number of business cards at the ceremony!

Were I in Anorris' shoes? I'd take that refund and do two things: 1)Buy a sweet looking and delicious lil' 6 incher from a great baker/decorator. 2) Treat myself and my husband to either a couples' spa day or other activity that we both loved doing together.

And then--I'd forget it and move on with my fabulous new life.

Blessings to you both, Anorris3.

--Knox--

You have done well Anorris3 for taking the path of a peaceful resolution, God bless you and your marriage.