This wasn't a big deal to most people but it was one of my more stressful deliveries! This is only my second year doing weddings.
Warning: SUPER LONG POST!!
I delivered a cake on Saturday to the nicest venue I've been to. I was really intimidated from the moment I looked it up online. The venue coordinator called me the day before to tell me to "drive around back to the gate and the guard will let you in to park." Well, the venue was located in the midst of a whole bunch of one way streets so trying to figure out where to go wasn't just a matter of turning around. Finally we just decided to drive into the parking garage because we couldn't see a single other place to go! In the garage I asked the parking attendant who showed me which door to use.
Right as we are getting the cake out of the van the MOB parks right next to us. We realize after talking to her that we have to carry the cake down an extremely long hallway, take an elevator down to the ground floor and then take another elevator up to the room where the reception is. We get down to the ground floor and headed for elevator #2 when we're stopped by some guy in a suit who says we can't take the cake over the carpet (too horrible to clean if I drop the cake, apparently) to the elevator and can we climb two flights of stairs with a 4 tiered cake? Extremely flustered by this point I agree to carry the cake up the stairs (my sister is there helping me). People aren't supposed to deliver in the front of the building. I told him I'd called the number I had two times to try to figure out where to go in and no one had answered. His attitude? Well of course not, you were calling the wrong number (only one bride gave me!).
I get into the reception room and set the cake down. The florist had provided a fresh flower topper and fresh flowers to put on the cake. The cake topper and the flowers to be put into the cake had a ton of hydrangeas! I specifically told the bride no hydrangeas and to talk to her florist about flowers that are safe to use on cakes (I know, I've heard all the organic stuff). I put the topper on the plate it was supposed to set on top of the cake so it wasn't really touching the top at all but I didn't use any of the extra hydrangeas on the rest of the cake. After this I left to go back to my car, only to be overcome with conscience.
This is where I need validation ladies: I went back in to talk to them about the flowers and why I hadn't used most of them on the cake and why they needed to take off the top of the top layer off cake if, and before, they served it. Oh, and the lovely guy in the lobby who'd made me walk up two flights of stairs said "well we don't cut the top tier. That is for the bride and groom" like I was the biggest idiot in the room. Finally I was forced to actually talk to the bride and she was totally fine with the whole flower issue.
But was I right to go back in and make a big deal of the hydrangeas?
And from now on, I will only use silk or sugar. No more of this mess![/quote]
Your heart was in the right place and I think you did the right thing, plus you covered all of your bases.
He wouldn't let you walk across the carpet with the cake? Did he make you take your shoes off too? lol. I would have told him that if the cake dropped you would pay to have the carpet cleaned...What an idiot that guy is, like you aren't going to be 100% careful with the damn cake you just spend hours on.
I don't think it's a big deal that you went in to make sure everything was OK with the bride about the flowers, but it probably wasn't necessary. In our experience the florist gets it wrong about 80% of the time, and we just do the best we can with what we have at the venue.
Sounds like you handled a very stressful delivery situation very well! We had a similar thing happen to us recently, NO WHERE to park and we had to walk the cake through a lobby FULL of people because the venue had no vendor entrance for us to use, what a mess! So I feel your pain!
I haven't gotten to the point that I make cakes to sell yet, but I would say that if you felt you needed to go back in then you did what felt right in your heart. I know how poisonous hydrangea is and I know for me I'd feel better having told someone than not telling anyone and someone getting sick. That's always my biggest fear. I know I would have done the same thing 
Hydrangea on the cake should be fine as long as they are not stuck directly into the cake (due to pesticides on real flowers you shouldn't put any stem directly in the cake) and they are removed before serving...any venue that knows how to serve cakes should know enough to take the flowers off.
Whew, you handled the delivery well. I have done a few deliveries myself and find them soooooooo stressful, although after the first one I learnt a lesson. I now park the car and then go and check out exactly where the cake is going to be placed and at the same time ask to use their trolley (the one they use when setting and clearing tables) makes life a lot easier to wheel in the cake.
Where the heck in Cincinnati did you deliver that cake to?!
Whew, you handled the delivery well. I have done a few deliveries myself and find them soooooooo stressful, although after the first one I learnt a lesson. I now park the car and then go and check out exactly where the cake is going to be placed and at the same time ask to use their trolley (the one they use when setting and clearing tables) makes life a lot easier to wheel in the cake.
I do this same exact thing. Many of the wedding cakes I deliver are in beach houses which have 4 flights of steps. I first do a 'walk through', to make sure there is nothing in my way like, small children, dogs or any other obstacle I also like to see that there is an actual place to sit the cake when I get finished with my trek up the stairs.
Wow, Hydrangea poisonous! I never knew. I know the last thing we want to do is to bother the bride on her wedding day, but I do feel like you handled everything beautifully.
So sad that you had horrible people to work with. I am glad that the bride and her mom sounded like nice people. Understanding people. They probably wouldn't have said or thought anything as long as the cake was pretty. We normaly put the un usable flowers around the table as decorations. Some of the flowers we find at weddings are half dead by the time we get there from just sitting on the table after florist delivers them.
We also do a walk through and ask for a cart to help wheel the cake to the venu room. Only a few don't have them.
We went to deliver a cake at a home wedding the other day and I told my husband to go see where the cake was to be placed (big house) and let the owner know we were there (they had called and said they were going out to the store but should be back when we got there).
He told me no... its fine.. he could tell I was upset with him so he put the cake back in the car, and as he approached the houses courtyard to go to there back delivery door.. up over the gate came a big yellow lab.. happy to see him and a little weiner dog. Both over excited ...had he had the cake in his arms I am sure that the dogs would have been eating cake. husband just smiled at me.. he knew I was right! and he did admit it too.
They say that god only gives us what we can handle.. sometimes I wish that he did't trust me so much...
Hope all your future deliveries go well.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%