I'm sorry that this happened to you.

I haven't read all the other posts and maybe someone has already said what I'm going to say, but I would let the groom deal with his family and their guest. My mom is an alcoholic, and so is my BIL, and I deal w/ my mom's crap, and my husband deals with his brother. We've tried to work it other ways, but trust me, YOU WILL BE MADE OUT TO BE A JERK SOMEHOW. These people (including the groom's mom who was laughing and egging her on) don't think that their behavior was a problem. The groom will know how to approach this situation.

Good luck.

It's such a shame that this happened. It looks like a lose lose situation - someone's going to get hurt no matter what gets done about it. I have to agree with the pictures however you end up following up though. I also find it hard to believe that not a single person stepped in and tried to stop the lady. Even if I were just a visitor at a wedding and I saw this happening I would have been right there letting the woman know what an a$$ she was making of herself and putting a stop to it! One more thing - I am not a big drinker by any means but don't blame it on the alcohol - if someone can't handle theirs they shouldn't drink it - everyone shouldn't have to do without because of one persons "illness". I know it is a problem for some (in my family too) but an event shouldn't revolve around one persons inability to tolerate something unless the event is for that person. People need to start taking responsibility for their own actions and quit blaming it on everyone/everything else. I'll get off of my high horse now . . .

I hope everything works out ok for everyone involved.

Debbie

OK! Let's see here....

We all believe that she should take action...BUT! She doesn't want to cause any fuss for her new family because of jobs, issues, whatever the case may be.

Can anyone think of a way for her to solve this fairly??? Obviously, I mean a little more civil then the recommendations we have gone through here??

I can honestly say that as much as I agree with having this woman pay or maybe take legal action since the cake was ruined, pulverized, slaughtered...at the actual wedding. (I had stated this before) WOULD WE ALL HONESTLY SAY TO A "FRIEND" TO STIR UP THIS NEW MARRIAGE??. No, I think we would all weigh out the options and think of something meaningful for her to do without having to cause a big fuss. I think she can handle this more civilized....Ask the bride and the groom what THEY want to do! IT WAS THEIR WEDDING! Instruct them that they may want to have her pay for the top tier to show her what she did was wrong.

And while some opinions might be to NOT have alcohol at their wedding/event...alcohol WAS an option at this event. This is what THEY chose....regardless of what SOME of the outcomes MAY be at a wedding/event.

Stephanie

I have made it very clear that there will be no liquor at my DD wedding. I won't pay for it! I never give it for a gift. I also don't go to afterwork parties or anywhere where there is alcohol served.
It seems to never fail a high percentage of the time that someone gets gassed, gets loud and ruins the party. It makes me uncomfortable to be around it. And like indydebi says it's the age. I am going to be 52 years old. I used to make myself sick worring about what other people think and let's don't hurt anyones feelings. So if I hurt your feelings, I can pretty well bet you were doing something so stupid, you needed your feelings hurt! lol.

So, I think I would sit down with you DD and SIL.
See how they are feeling about the whole situation.
Tell them what you would like to do and then let them have the final dicision. Again, I would have hung the woman out to dry right there at the reception. (Again it is the age thing). But you don't want to start problems between the DD and SIL. Let them decide and then be done with it.

JMHO

Lu

WOW...what an awful thing to happen..
My son is getting married this July coming up..
We don't drink.. The bride's side does...I'm doing the cake and I hope nothing like this happens at our wedding..
It's ashame what some people will do.. I feel bad for you..but since alchol was permitted at the wedding- it's up to your DD and SIL to say what should be done.
Sorry this had to happen and that you didn't even get to eat any of the cake..

Sunny,
I'm so sorry that your daughter had to go through that! I know that your heart must feel very heavy for your child's pain.

I, too, agree that replacing the cake top would make her very happy. And if Susan is willing to do it, so much the better.

Maybe, not to agree or disagree with anyone as they've all given heartfelt opinions, you should sit down with your daughter and her husband, and ask them if they want your involvlement or if they want to handle this on their own.

The last thing you want to do is cause her more heartache. She may not want you to be involved. I know when my children have been hurt, I go into "momma bear" mode too. Usually my kids just ask me to let it go and let them deal with it.

See how she feels, then decide what to do!

For anyone wanting to take a look, I heard from Susan today and she gave me permission to show all of you her beautiful work. I know my topic is about the doom and destruction of the wedding cake but I also wanted to show you the awesome grooms cake she created also. My SIL graduated from IA State and is currently a proud deputy sheriff so my daughter asked Susan to make a carrot cake (his fav) for him. He was happily surprised. Also, Susan could not be there to set the cake up on the day of the wedding and neither could I so my sister and her hubby set the table up for us. The cake was actually supposed to be set diagonally and the scrolls were to appear more lined up but it didn't matter, it was steady and strong and beautiful the way it was. We couldn't have asked for anything more!

Wow! Really beautiful all the way around! I don't know what the original set up of the cake would've looked like but, I think it's beautiful! What amazing work Susan had done....such a shame it got butchered!

Oh it's so beautiful.... I still can't believe this woman was left to have at it.
Hope it resolves to everyone's satisfaction.

I, too, am so sorry you had to suffer through this. I perfectly understand not wanting to stir up family troubles. In your original post, you said that you contacted Susan to make the cake. If you are the one who actually contracted and paid for the cake, you are well within your moral and legal rights to sue this drunken woman for your loss. Your daughter can keep her hands clean. Don't even think about an attorney though. It's not worth going to court (financially) if you get an attorney involved. Sue in small claims, no attorney involved. You will have to have the defendant served notice with a certified letter. If it is ignored and she doesn't show up, you win by default. If you have pictures of the damages, you'd still win. If ones gross behavior is not stopped it goes on forever. I hope you let us know what you decide. Good luck!

I am so sorry that this had to happen to you. If it were me I think I would have taken her outside and whooped her a$$. Just talking junk because I would have thought about my DD first and not done a thing there.

Now I will be the odd man out in this conversation.

But have you thought that maybe this woman needs help. I don't think that someone that does something like this is ok in the head. Someone needs to get this woman some help. That I would mention to the in-law. Other than that I would leave the rest up to the newlyweds.

Now I think that I would talk to my daughter and see how big of a deal it was to her and her new hubby. Did they even notice. When I got married I have no idea who in the world cut my cake. We did the first picture thing and that was that, the next thing I knew the cake was on plates. So with that being said, I feel that the ones that need to do something about this is the couple. You can ask your daughter and your SIL and let them know that you are there for them and if they need your help you can help them. But I would let them deal with this and his mom. They will decide how important the whole thing was in their day.

I think that your feelings about you not beeing able to keep your cake is what bothered you more than what really happened. I know that you were sadden by the site of the ruined cake. But remember the bride and groom have very beautiful memories of their wedding and making this into something bigger than what it is I think it will ruin thier memories more than the cake ruined anything about thier day. I think that making this into a legal matter will leave a bitter taste in thier mouths about their beutiful day. Think about it, do you really want your daughters' beautiful wedding memories be hampered by a situatiion with ONE guest and the cake.

Think about it like this the cake was going to be cut up and served, so it's not that it will be saved forever. So what, it didn't get served the way that you had intended and not everyone got to eat cake. So what, the day past and there is nothing that can bring it back and nothing that will change even if you got the money back. the cake is gone and nothing will change.
Your daughter and new sil will have bigger battles in their new marriage so why give them this to start their marriage. A wedding cake. They will have to deal with his mom and that will cause tension between them. Then that will cause tension between your DD and SIL and that isn't a good start. Adding lawyers and courts will make it into something big and nasty and I might put you, your DD and SIL and his mom into really nasty positions and think of this it might even put your daughter into a position where she will feel that she has to CHOOSE sides. Your SIL will defend his mom because she is the one that invited the DRUNK, so she (his mom) will defend her (the drunk), than your dughter might find herself in the middle of who should she stand beside you or her new husband.


I am not saying that I don't stand up for myself or that you need to let things happen to you and just turn the other cheek but I pick my battles and if they are going to affect my kids in any way I think about them even more. I am a hot head so I actually tend to go overboard when my kids are involved, but I try to sit back before I make things bigger and hurt my kids along the way.

I am very sorry that it is such a long respond and I really hope that I have not offend you but I have been put through alot with my husband and my mom and my mom and in-laws and it never comes out in my favor, I get cought in the middle and someone always ends up hurt. So to think all of this over a cake, it's not worth it. I know that the cake was and is a big deal in a wedding and of corse that is what I do, cakes. But if it is going to cost my child a bad feeling than no to me it isn't all that.

Just my two cents.

Vicky

BTW, the cakes were amazing. They looked very pretty.

If you have ordered another cake let that be your gift to them on thier first anniversary. I would order it for thier first anniversary not now and freeze it, I would want it fresh. Let them enjoy that cake, not bitter memories of the other one.


Vicky

Sunny77

this actually has nothing to do with your topic although I do feel for you all in this situation.

Anyway I saw the grooms cake said Nebraska .... that is where I was born and raised ... and I just noticed that you are in Nashville .... I live in murfreesboro .... small world isn't it

Amanda

Sunny77: I am the photographer your daughter hired for the wedding. Susan (QT Cakes) sent me this link, and I thought it would be prudent for me to comment here to help provide a little clarification from my perspective on what happened with your daughter's cake.

When we went to cut the cake for the formal 'cake-cutting' scene, we noticed that there were no cake-cutting materials. As the facility director wasn't around, we went ahead and made due with standard silverware. I can, after all, paste a cake knife into their hands for those photos, if the bride and groom so desire. Unfortunately, none of the three of us considered the ramification of there not being cake-cutting utensils out there when it came time to start divvying up the cake for the guests.

Since Susan and I happen to live across the street from each other, once I learned who made the cake, I called her and asked her if she'd like me to bring her the stands and other support equipment so that the bride and groom wouldn't have to drive 140 miles round-trip to do so. She thought this was a great idea, and so did the bride and groom, and with their permission I committed to returning those items to Susan on their behalf.

A little while later, the mother of the groom pulled me aside (this was between those last-minute family shoots we did outside at the reception place) to take a photo of someone cutting the cake. Her comment to me was rather terse, along the lines of "I want you to take a picture of this". This is when it became apparent to me that not having proper cake-cutting utensils was a very bad thing. I do not know if I took a photo of one of the originally-assigned cake-cutters or someone else. I am not aware who the official cake-cutters were, but I am aware that they didn't have the proper equipment to cut the cake until I intervened, as follows:

There was only one lady cutting the cake when the MoG brought me over, so I am unaware of anyone relieving anyone else of that duty. Whomever this person was, assuming she's this "Drunky Drunkerson" (whom at worst appeared to me to be "Tipsy McTipple" at the time, for what it's worth), she was basically aghast that the MoG wanted a photo of her, considering the mess she had made with having to use plasticware to cut the cake. (That having been said, I cannot attest to her lack of common sense in not soliciting the facility director or wait staff for cake-cutting equipment.) Anyway, after I took the photo, I stepped into the back, found the facility director, and had him bring out regular cake-cutting equipment, but the "damage" had already been done.

(I will share the photo of this person with you directly, Sunny77, at your request, so you can identify the person, and will be glad to do so ahead of my production schedule. However, I will be out of town for the state high school soccer tournament from the 10th through the 14th. I should reiterate again that the photo was taken of an individual cutting the cake PRIOR TO the time at which I engaged the facility director to provide proper utensils.)

Whomever she was, I asked the lady if she would be so kind as to put the support equipment (the stands and whatnot) into a box for me so that I could take them back with me to Susan when I returned home. I assume she was sober enough to do so, as all the pieces were ready for me in a box after I had completed my contracted services. But to be honest, I really have no idea who assembled those items for me, as I was shooting the formal dances and other things throughout the evening.

When I left the facility, the top two tiers of the cake were on the cake table, one atop the other, which means that whomever removed the top tier just set it down straight on the second tier. There was originally a support under the top tier. While the two tiers seemed okay at the time, I would imagine it didn't take much time for that second tier to collapse under the weight of the first one, and that's probably what caused them to become damaged. The entire cake table was an awful mess, but as my normal focus is capturing memories that people want, I didn't think to capture the mess for posterity. I apologize for that.

Naturally, I have several high-resolution photographs of the cake table and individual cakes from before the cake-cutting, so no worries that there are still good memories to be had from Susan's wonderful cakes.

~Dawnne Gee
owner, lead photographer
ShadowMoon Productions, LLC
www.shadowmoon.com

Im sorry this happened at your daughters wedding and will not give my opinion since you already have so many, i am curious though, have you done anything yet? I m just curious to find out how this ends.

How infuriating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After reading the post by the photographer, it looks like there were two sides to this story.

Yes! I think we all want to know what happened now!
Thanks to the photographer for clarifying some things up!

What a difference some perspective makes! While it was incredibly naive to attempt to cut and a serve a wedding cake with plastic tableware, it does not appear to be the debacle first described with the woman grabbing handfuls of cake while the mother of the groom stood back and laughed.

Let's hope this hasn't gotten to the point of destroying any hope of a civil relationship between the mother of the bride, the son-in-law and his mother (who somehow became the villain here)

This makes me very, very angry. First of all there is another thread that was on here a couple days ago about "wedding stories". In that thread I would say the majority of the stories were of drunk people at a wedding that in one way or another ruined the wedding. I HATE alcohol. Alcohol if not taken in the correct amount can ruin lives. Not just wedding, but LIVES. And when some people do get drunk they have no idea what they have done. They have memory loss. How stupid are people???? Who would ever want to drink to the point that they can't remember a thing they did during that time. How foolish is this?? What has our world become when people just don't care, get drunk, and then can't take responsibility for what they have done. They've made asses out of themselves and can't remember a thing about it.

I feel very badly that this happened to your daughter's wedding cake. What right did that woman have to even think she could cut your daughter's cake? I would send her a letter and tell her how she acted at your daughter's wedding, what she did etc. and send her the bill for the cake. Maybe she can't remember a thing she did. I would remind her and tell her what an ass she made of herself. She needs to know.

Sorry but I just can't stand ignorant people who put other people at risk.

I agree with bpm161. Over 5,000 people viewed the original post by Sunny77 saying horrible things about the MOG and an intoxicated wedding guest. Fortunately the wedding photographer who witnessed the events provided a completely different account of what happened. By this time it is very possible that the MOG and/or wedding guest have viewed the comments also.

I think Sunny77 should respond to what the photographer had to say and perhaps consider an apology.