There are alot of great points made. Obviously nobody can tell you what to do, and understandably your first thought is going to be to try and forget about this whole bad experience, but it was her wedding day.

You were trying to be nice and accomodate her and in the end disappointed yourself and her. She sounds a bit nasty, and people like that are usually vindictive. I agree. Even if you can't spare the money right now, make arrangements to pay her back slowly.

Again, I'm sorry this happened to you.
Angie

I think if your going to do this. only do it for people you know, unless you have a lisense and a business to bake for the public.

Molly2

I know a lot of people have said their piece, and it's mostly the same thing, and this is by no means meant to insult the op in any way, or make her feel bad. I'm sure this happens quite a bit, but I thought I'd add my two cents in too...

I read the whole thread, and it's quite disturbing to me, to tell you the truth. I too am trying to start up, and get business, and I am very proud of what I do. I have made cakes for brides that don't know me, and they've trusted me for no reason, but that's how you gain business and respect in this business. I think it's ludacris to blame the bride for trusting someone who has advertised that they make wedding cakes, and agreed to the fact that they can make what the bride wants. Even if she said she was "practicing" if she was confident enough to say she could make the cake, the bride took that confidence as ability. If I were in the bride's shoes, I would be very mad, and not that I approve of being rude to others, but, in some cases, there's nothing else you can do but be rude. This was her wedding, and she has the right to want things her way, especially if she paid for them to be that way. I really think that it would have been better to not have a cake, or it not be vegan then to present a cake that is destroyed. The couple has every right to demand a refund, they didn't get anything that they asked for. As for eating the cake...why was it brought if it wasn't meant to be eaten? I think the complaint would have been the same if she had seen the cake and thrown it in the trash...then you would have said I went through all the effort to get the cake there and she just threw it away.

Ok, too much ranting, I guess. My thing is this, I think like someone said before, at some level we are all still practicing and learning, but part of that learning is knowing our limits. Wedding cakes are not meant to be experiments. I totally agree that a full refund is due, even if it's in installments. I know you don't live in that town anymore, and aren't expecting orders...but word in this kind of business travels fast. And you never know who this person knows. And as a college student, court fees are the last thing you want to fit into your budget. So, chalk it up to a big lesson, and pay her back. Don't use her rudeness as an excuse...the cake was still your responsibility and you didn't come through, so you have to remedy the situation.

You both had a bad day, but if you let this go on, she could make a lot more of your days miserable.

Ibelieve their are two things people go to a wedding to see that is the dress and the cake and as for making it right I would refund her money or offer to pay installments if you can't give it back all at once, so at least if she does decide to take it one more step (court) you can at least say I did try and refund her money.

Molly2

I would think that even if you went to small cliams court it would cost both parties the amount of money spent for the cake already. We as decorators all go to the wedding to see the cake and also the dress. Others really don't look. I have friends who go to weddings all the time and I will ask wht a did the cake look like and they day I don't know!

imho, when the bride read the ad that stated "would like to bake cakes to get experience", she should have realized right then there was a chance something major could go wrong. we all know that you make gorgeous cakes, but she didn't & she took the chance anyway. I say do what you want about the refund. I'm wouldn't want to eat rice & beans to give back money to someone that is hostile & rude & wouldn't appreciate it even if I did. The point is you have to do what you can live with. edited to say in the future if you want to do this again, you may want to make up a contract that says no refunds.

I've already posted a previous comment but I'll put my other two cents in. You definitely need to refund the money (in full) whether you can afford to or not. You took on the responsibility and you didn't come thru - now you have to own up and do the right thing. Refunding the amount she paid can be a lot cheaper than if the bride takes it further. Remember - the bride is going to remember her wedding day forever!!!

WOW This is a long post. I hope you're getting some good information!

I don't know if you've remained in contact with the bride at all or if you have been ignoring her e-mails. One thing you could do is tell her you have been having computer problems or changed e-mail addresses and did not receive her e-mails. It may help her cool down a bit if she doesn't believe you ever received any of them. She may be getting nastier and nastier because she isn't getting a response. This happened to me where my wedding videographer hadn't called me several weeks after the wedding. I left message after message on his voice mail, tried to e-mail him, and tried every way possible to contact him. I was furious and I was leaving nasty messages about how wrong it was not to even return a call. He finally called and said he hadn't ever received a message - that his voice mail box gets full and that it will still sound like it is recording, but it's not. I don't know if this is true or not, but I gave him a little more leeway because of the statement. He also explained to me a lot of the difficulties that had occured on my wedding day that I was unaware of and that he didn't charge me for..... so you may want to respond to her in that way and then explain what happened on your end. I would probably refund the money - or at least offer to refund the money in payments or re-make the cake for an anniversary for free. I believe that both of you are at fault - I don't think anyone should hire a wedding cake decorator out of craigslist and then make special requests - but I also believe if you're doing something new and it's for money - you should at least do a trial run ahead of time to allow for errors. If you had tried to make the cake a week earlier and ran into all of these problems, you could have called the bride and discussed the problems with her and gone back to your original recipe. Anyway, good luck with the situation - you may never make the bride completely happy, but it may help you to feel better to end the situation once and for all.

IMO A complete refund is in order, even if you have moved etc. The Bride paid for a cake and ended up with a complete disaster. Practicing or not she paid for a product that was not delivered to her satisfaction. This is why I don't do wedding cakes, I am not confident enough with my skills etc that I could say or feel that I could provide a bride a "Great" cake. I have been on the other side of this and let me just say that if my wedding cake had not been 100% what I asked for I would be raising all kinds of hell. This gal has every right to expect a refund in full and you should give it to her.

Did anyone else watch Judge Alex today (Tues.)? They had a case about a Photographer and a Wedding. It made me think about this post.

No But did you see the one about the not so pretty wedding cake. I thought about that when I posted earlier. The judgment was for the cake decorator because they still used it and ate the thing!

I just thought of another thing. As mendhigurl said, you don't know who this woman knows. She might have some SERIOUS connections...and yes, we all know that word of mouth travels fast.

It would be cheaper in the long run to pay her on a payment plan than to have her take you to court.

And no, that doesn't excuse her rudeness. However, sometimes, it is the only way to garner attention. Unfortunately.

Okay, after reading all of the replies, I think the money should be paid back, but on your next contract you should have in the small print to cover your butt and theirs: "if in the event that I have a bad cake day and a refund is demanded, the cost of the ingredients shall not be refunded by any means. Also, if you are rude, belittling, or down right nasty to me at any time you lose your right to a refund" That way if they sign the contract they can't be mad if they don't end up with what they wanted. of course I am saying this tongue in cheek, just thought it was funny! hope you did too!

Can you say.... Integrity???? Give her a full refund, you'll sleep better at night.

Soooooo sorry that this happened; I know that we can all feel the yuck you must have felt as you were delivering it. Just another 2 cents here about this situation:

Given how you felt while you were delivering it, you knew that the cake was messed up -- and in the end, the cake is usually 2nd only to the bride on the bride's big day. If it's that off the mark, then she's bound to be upset or at least severely disappointed. While she has every right to be upset, she isn't helping things by getting nasty and abusive.

That said, you should really consider calling her and trying to make things right. Tell her how very sorry you are. Tell her how very hard you tried to give her what she wanted. Let her know how horrible you felt when things went wrong and what you've learned. And, tell her that you would like to refund everything, but would really appreciate her understanding your financial situation, and then ask her if she wouldn't mind letting you keep the cost of the ingredients. Go for a payment plan if necessary, but definitely get her at least some of her money back.

Sarah

what happened to the OP? i'd like to know what she has to say.

IMO the only acceptable resolution is a full refund. Sure it sucks to lose that much money on a cake but I will bet it sucks a lot more to have one of the most important parts of your wedding turn out to be a complete disaster. Accidents happen but this was not the brides accident.

Definitely refund the money with a smile and move on.

Sarah
The cake was sold for $250, and Kelsie spent $350 on it. So she already made a loss before the cake was even delivered.

It's a terrible situation to be in, I wouldnt wish it on anyone, but I'm guessing that the bride started to get angry when her complaints were ignored???
Nati[/quote]

Why did the ingredients cost so much?

adven68[quote/]Why did the ingredients cost so much?[/quote]

That's what I said. I don't think it should have been more than $100. She must be counting equipment and gas and time??

This is a tough place to be in. I feel sorry for both of them.

I made one mistake similar to this when starting out....I worked my butt off and undercharged and made a mess of things...bottom line..looking back now, all my fault, with good intentions... i promised something i could not deliver and made a mess of things, inexperience and poor planning can be our down fall. as many others have said...sad experience for both decorator and bride.

I too am really interested to know why her costs where so high, especially since it was a boxed cake and canned frosting.

I assumed that since she is fairly new to decorating that she had to buy some supplies like pans, tips, colors etc. Of course she keeps those, so they don't really factor into the cost of the cake. But she never said she spent $350 on ingredients, just that she spent that making the cake. I'm guessing some of that was on equipment. We all know how fast that can add up!

OH no im not saying she shouldn't pay anything back. I was just repeating what she said, because you said that she should give back the money but keep the costs, since she is stating that the costs were more than she was paid, this wouldnt really work out.
My opinion on this one is that she should really pay all the money back.
I also dont understand why the cake cost so much. I make all my cakes from scratch, and use good quality chocolate and im still to make a cake that costs me $350 even including the costs of gas, electricity and water.
cheers
Nati[/quote]

Oh, gotcha Nati. You've got a point about the costs. Boy this is a sticky situation! If she's really new, it's true that pans, etc. can cost. However, I'm with you, I really think she should pay her back.

Sarah