I don't get it. I came in from delivering my second wedding cake yesterday to a message for a wedding cake. No return phone number. No date inquiry. Just to call asap. Can't do that without a number...I'm not a mind reader. So, I'm sitting here working on another contract just a few minutes ago and the phone rings. Same lady. She wants to book me...tonight...for a wedding cake...for THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!! I told her that I am booked solid for the next 3 weeks with no openings, not to mention, I'm not prepared for an impromptu tasting...on a Sunday evening when I'm getting my kids ready for bed. (I only mentioned about being booked for the next few weeks.) She gets angry and promptly hangs up. I don't get it. Did you just remember that you're getting married in 6 days??? Then again, it may be a last-minute thing, but I doubt that any decorator (other than a grocery store, if even then) could do a cake on such short notice with all of the other orders that they may/may not have. Anyway, I was shocked. Just had to share...

Amy

Yikes lol she's nuts. Sounds like her decorator canceled or she was going to do it herself and changed her mind or something along those lines.

6 days! I don't get why she acted angry when she called with such short notice.

I once did a tasting on a Monday for a wedding cake that was Saturday. It was a small, second wedding, and the bride had suddenly had a change of heart and decided the bakery she had booked with had cakes that were dry. I never asked too many questions, like if she was losing her deposit with them.

It was sheer luck that I was available that Saturday. Of course, I *had* been planning to have a garage sale.

I can't imagine someone getting ANGRY that you're booked? Surely people know that weddings are usually (and should be) booked 4-6 months in advance. I just tell people "I'm sorry, this date has been booked for 6 months."

We got that all the time when I was at the grocery store bakery. We'd have people come in on Wed or Thurs for a wedding cake Sat. Our policy was full payment 2 weeks in advance for wedding cakes BUT we also had a policy NOT to turn down orders....so the 2nd policy ALWAYS won out and we'd end up scrambling to try and do what they wanted and of course they'd always want something we didn't have the supplies for on-hand and get upset when their design and flavor choices were somewhat limited. But, in the end, they'd have their cake.

Oh, and these cakes were always three or four tiers for 100+ people. I figured most of the time someone in the family had planned on making the cake and at the last minute they realized they had bitten off more than they could chew!

We also had people come in or call on Sat morning, when we would be crazy busy trying to get 100+ orders done (and at least 50 of them would be for Noon or earlier) needing an extravagent 1st birthday cake because the one they tried to make like the one they saw online or in a magazine didn't work out or fell apart or something. And they'd want it within the hour and then they'd get upset when the best we could offer them would be to write on a cake from the grab-and-go case and throw together a smash cake.

I get alot of those calls and I don't do tastings! If they want it they'll order it. I've had many calls for a wedding cake the same day! We do charge more to do it if we can fit it in.
Usually it is because a bride trys to save money and hires an inexperienced home decorator or friend who ruins the cake or chickens out.

I say that is why there are licensed cake shops!

mpc

Maybe they found out the bride is pregnant and she is one of the conservative people that believe in marriage first and is trying for a quicky wedding or something!
Obviously since she had no clue that six days is not enough time that she will be buying a sheet cake at the grab and go like prterrell said!!

I noticed you are in NC ~ so am I! This type of behavior doesn't surprise me at all from some of the folks around here. In Smithfield (30 miles east of Raleigh), people think I am NUTS to ask for $35-40 for a half sheet cake, fully decorated, with a large BCT on top. And when I do carved or unique cakes, they just don't understand the time and effort it takes to get something like that done. I had a teacher at my kids school that asked me on Friday afternoon if I could make her a teapot cake for the next morning. Duh! (Obviously, I said "no"!)

People just don't get it. And I am sure the reason she is having such a hard time finding a decorator is that most schools are graduating this weekend, and everyone (including me) is booked solid!!!!

<S>

Starkie:

I can believe it! I grew up in Johnston County. Hmmm if my choices are Food Lion, Walmart, or paying money for a REAL cake, I'll take the REAL cake! (FL and Walmart cakes are horrid!).

Horrid does not even begin to describe the nasty, "butter" flavored, all shortening icing the stores around here serve up. BLECH!!!

The "grab and go"! I luv it!

I got an email once from a bride complaining that she never got any info from me. This was sometime in March. I am anal-retentive about maintaining files on every inquiry I get and I had nothing for this chick. So I send an email with an apology, telling her that I had no record of receiving her inquiry .... what was the date of her wedding?

She replies that it's 7-7-07. Oh geesh! Only THE most popular date this year! I replied:

"Oh!! THAT explains it! As I'm sure you're finding out, this is THE most popular date this year. I already have 3 weddings on that date and they have been booked for a year......."

I went on to explain that if she contacted me via respond.com, I have to pay for contact information, but I can see the date on the initial notification email. "..... so I'm sure you can understand that I am unable to spend the money to get contact info just to say "sorry....we're booked"."

This wasn't a one-weeks notice deal, but to try to plan a wedding for 7-7-07 in MARCH?????? Oh, pul-lease!!!!!!! She's going to be lucky to find ANY wedding vendor available! USA Today did a big story on this date for weddings! (One of my brides was featured in the article!)

But let's see......YOU, customer, wait until the last minute and then get upset because WE haven't been sitting around with our thumb up certain parts of our body just WAITING on you to call to place a last minute order.

Ah, but if we didn't have customers like this, what WOULD we talk about?

Amy, it was nice meeting you this weekend... I'm truly sorry if I held you up at all.

I can believe this woman did that... folks around here either have a clue, or they don't, and it's scary how many more of them fall into the 'don't' category than the 'do'.

Makes me wish I was legal... I'd offer to take it on.

Sorry she was so nasty. Hopefully, she'll get it figured out, but I have a feeling that she's going to find out the hard way that getting a large cake at the last minute like this is going to be sending her to Sam's club or something.

DoniB: It was great meeting you, too!!! What fun...and a wild coincidence. LOL. You didn't hold me up in the least. You're the first that I've ever met from CC, so it was beyond cool. I wish that we'd have had MORE time to chat.

Okay, glad it wasn't just me with the weird calls for quickie wedding cakes. I didn't understand why she got angry either. My DH said the same thing that many of you said...she probably had a family member who felt overwhelmed with the task of making a wedding cake. If I wouldn't be so booked, I'd have taken it on, but graduation is this all week long in our area, and I'm slammed with those orders. Oh, well. Chalk this one up to the "what? are you serious?" category. LOL. We hear it all, don't we? I remember when I was working at Food Lion and people would call on Saturday morning wanting a bd cake for their child...THAT day...saying that they "forgot". I've had two babies and I can assure you that there ARE things that I forget on a daily basis...many, many things now that I'm getting older...LOL...but the day that I was blessed with Ethan and Gracie are etched into my mind and heart forever! I'd never forget those days.

Have a great week everyone!!!
Amy

Ditto what everyone else has said. I've not gotten such a short notice for a wedding cake but have gotten many late evening requests for "can I pick it up tomorrow morning?" cakes, especially for gluten free cakes. On my web site, I also say "serving the XYZ area, but not a week goes by that I don't get email orders from hundreds and thousands of miles away, even from other countries.

bride called me on Friday (june 1) to book her cake for the 15th of June. She wants a wonky cake of the wedding and the decorator she booked months ago, suddenly phoned her on Thursday to say she doesnt know who to construct a wonky cake. She told the BTB to eiter have a simple cake or to find somone else . Well I only have a b'day cake to make, so I told her I would do it for her. she was soooo relieved!

I understand about needing time to do wedding cakes but I really do not understand about anyone being angry because of their last minute plans.

My DH and I planned in February to be married on 7-7-79. We were going to a wedding chapel and just get married without any extras. Well, two weeks before the date, my Dad begged me to have a wedding since I was his only daughter. It wasn't easy but we did it. We planned and carried out a home wedding in two weeks. We offered extra money to photographers and florists in order to get them. We certainly didn't get angry and this person might get better results with kindness also.

WOW!! Sounds like that lady was feeling the stress of Wedding Mania!!! I work in the tuxedo business as my career so I get to hear ALL KINDS of fun stories about how people flip out about wedding stuff!!! Just let it roll off your back (which it sounds like you have) and hope she realizes later that she's asking the impossible!!

Excellent response to her though! Great customer skills!

riana- What is a wonky cake?

There are tons of reasons someone might need a wedding cake on short notice-- offhand, how about someone's pregnant, as mentioned above, someone's being deployed, someone has health issues. Life happens.

There's no excuse to be rude to a potential vendor, but the vendor really shouldn't take a last-minute request personally or as some kind of reflection of the idiocy of the potential client.

I agree too that there was no reason to be mean or mad about being turned down, but I understand all too well why some brides have last minute requests.

When I was getting married I got a call from my cake decorator, that I had booked for 10 months, 2 weeks before the wedding. She had a baby early and lost a lot of blood (they wanted her to have a transfusion but she refused) so she would not be able to do my cake (AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) so I was frantically calling around and one lady took pity on me. It was supposed to be her vacation time but she did my cake for me. So anyway I know why it happens she just shouldn't have been mean or rude.

I just did a wedding cake on saturday that was ordered late thursday night. I couldn't believe how long this girl put it off but luckily she ordered a simple small three tier cake and I wasn't too full with orders. What really made me laugh though was when my photographer called me friday night asking about a minister. Here this girl was getting married on saturday, has known for months, and still didn't have a minister. Oh yeah I'm not just a cake decorator I'm also a wedding planner. I just couldn't wrap my mind over how you can plan something for months but still not have a minister! She booked my photographer months ago so you know it wasn't last minute.

" Okay, glad it wasn't just me with the weird calls for quickie wedding cakes. I didn't understand why she got angry either"
I don't think she was angy at YOU....... she is just upset because she can't get a cake..... who knows what else went wrong, or what she didn't plan for.....

I am so relieved to hear that everywhere around the world, brides are pulling the same stuff - I get calls all the time for wedding cakes for a week's notice, even when my website and my phone message says that I am booked for all of 2007. I have had brides break down and cry, I guess hoping that I will feel bad and do their cake for them!

The busiest weekend that I have every year is Thanksgiving Weekend (up here in Canada it is 2nd weekend in October), and I double book for that weekend up to a year and half in advance - I still get people calling a week in advance for that one! What is worse, my cousin announced that she was going to get married this year, and she had chosen Thanksgiving Weekend! and, could I do her cake? Luckily, it was early enough that I had only one booking, so I could do it, but I warned her to book everything else early because it was the busiest wedding weekend of the year!

And thanks Sugar Plum Fairy...I thought that 7/7/07 was finally coming to an end...I hadn't thought of 8/8/08!! LOL! I'll have to book my vacation around that time...

Nicole

Although I haven't had BTB calling to order cakes on short notice, my own MIL calls every time there is an event, that I don't know about, and asks me to do a cake - the NIGHT before. So I can totally understand.