My First Interview With A Bride!
Decorating By mrsright41401 Updated 13 Jun 2006 , 7:59pm by mrsfish94
I am in a complete and utter panic! I just got a phonecall from a bride I met in APRIL at the dayspa I get my bikini wax at. She is the receptionist and she asked what I do for a living and I told her that I am a cake decorator. She took my business card and then I didn't hear from her. Well, she just called me tonight and wants to meet Thursday to interview me to do her cake!
The last I knew she was planning a wedding for 300-400 people! She wants chocolate cake and the color is to be Tiffany Blue. (I remembered all this from our first conversation, I think that impressed her. It also impressed her that I had gone home and looked up Tiffany Blue cakes for ideas!)
So we're meeting at a local coffee shop and I'm bringing a 6 inch chocolate cake, some choices of fillings and a couple choices of frostings for her to taste.
Can I get any hints on what else I can do to really impress this bride? What else do I need to bring to cover my own rear end?
Rachel
You know, I was impressed by the Disney show on FN. For their cake sampling, they had slices of two or three flavors of cakes and some samples of fillings on a little plate. They didn't do a put together cake as a sample. I am wondering how that would be for a bridal tasting. It actually seemed like less trouble than putting together a sample cake......... the bride, after all, has pictures from which to choose decorations.......
That's basically waht I'm doing, but I'm going to give her an actual cake with sample fillings.
Rachel
Excellent idea JulieB.
Most brides have an idea of what they want... and there are tons of photos to reference.
Get the CAKE right and then offer to do a sample cake for $x.xx dollars.
Take that off the price of the Wedding Cake or hike the wedding cake price up and offer to do the sample for free... but I would keep the deposit.
i'm not sure what you have for contracts, but someone suggested the other day that if a client changes their mind it will cost them
contractors call this change order--everytime a change is made, both client & contractor sign this with new added price adjustment on it
inform them of deposit prices, payment dates, very last day changes can be made---this way if you need to make practice cakes all of your money will not be in it if changes are made
this is all i can think of right now to cover you
Questions to ask:
Date, how many people, what theme, flavors of cake, filling & frosting, round or square tiers, stacked or seperators, will you be serving the top tier, will you provide the cake top, charge for delivery, (I charge 25.00), address of reception & contact person, will they be decorating the cake table, make arrangements to get back all your equipment, what time for delivery. That's all I can think of right now!
Earlene has a wonderful contract on this site. Also great info for bride. She states to feel free to use it for your own business and I have used her contract, changed to suite my business. Here's a link to her site.
http://www.earlenescakes.com/index1.htm
Also, congratulations!!!
Hi Rachel,
Make sure you have a set price like $2.00 per serving. That way you don't short cut yourself. Require a 50% non-refundable deposit too! That is not unreasonable....it is very common to request that.
I think that is so neat using the palate. I will have to look into doing that. I currently bake 4" square cakes (single layer) and frost them. But the palate idea seams much easier. Although, all my brides love the idea of getting that little cake and being able to take it to the MOH or MOB to taste too!!!
Congrats on the appointment!!! I'll pray it goes well!!!!
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