In the latest issue of Bridal Guide there's an article about getting the price you want from vendors. I'm quoting here:

"At your first meeting with a vendor...you'll discuss his packages and prices. Know that vendors usually prefer"(their emphasis, not mine) "working with clients who know how to bargain. It shows that you've come prepared with smart questions, and that the two of you will probably be able to work well together."


Can someone explain to me the logic behind that statement? How is it that vendors are supposed to prefer working with people who try to nickel and dime them from the first meeting?

I also saw another brilliant suggestion to get a "cheaper" dummy cake in the paper here today.

I've had three clients in the past two years who must have read that very article because they bring whole new meaning to "pain in wazoo!" Then they had the nerve to get mad when I told them how it was going to be -- "you mean I have to pay you for decorating styrofoam???" In a word, YES!

Don't get me started on wedding mag advice. They seem to think that every cake vendor (sounds like a machine) are only large bakeries. They seem to foget that most smaller towns have one woman baking out her kitchen where decorating a styrofoam cake take just as much time as decorating a real cake! Another thing they fail to realize is that styrofoam is MORE EXPENSIVE than actual cake!! I have yet to get more than $3.50 a serving for a wedding cake. Please try and talk me down from my ridiculously low price already. Please!

I prefer it? Hmmmm... not according to my website which clearly states that my prices are set and I do not haggle or discount.

Oh Yeah.

Just what I want and need and have time for.....

After I've spent my precious time sending e-mails back and forth and baking samples and having a 1½-hour consultation and sketching a design for the couple.... I PREFER if they try and haggle?

There's the door.

haha - don't come to me wanting to haggle. My prices are my prices, don't like it then go to WM down the road. I have to earn a living.

Those crazee editors! Some dil-hole probably mentioned in passing how he loves to haggle and it became the hook for a silly article.


Editorial like that gives you an idea of how starved for real information these magazines actually are. I'd like to have an editor follow me around for a week or sit in on a build and write THAT story. Let's see how willing they are to print misinformation then. You can't blame the customers for being boneheaded when you consider the source.

Oh great.. I'll happily kick them out the minute they get pissy because I won't come down on my prices.

Thanks.. but no thanks.. now go to Wal*Mart.

I wonder if they have a section like most magazines where you can write a response to one of their articles? (sorry...haven't picked up a wedding mag in who knows how long) If they did, I wonder if we should all write a comment on the article like that that they could publish! They are apparently not fact checking!!

I live in the land of try and get a better price.... Italy.... where everything is haggled.... although usually they are pretty good about paying for cakes.... I used to make jewellery.. and they would tell me what they wanted to pay!!!!! Recently though.. I had a dream client.. who once she asked what a type of cake would cost... she said.. well my budget is..... AND IT WAS DOUBLE what I had said!!! I would love every client to be like that!!! LOL

Sure they can haggle down the price.. just your lowest base price and tell them that does not include the design they want. It takes time. Also after sketching (which some brides want a CAD (computer aided degisn) it seems like) and consultation and if you don't charge for the tasting.. its not just about the cake.

I set prices based on the ingredients, and the time it will take me. If they start getting snotty I just start adding more for "extras".

I want to make the customer happy, but I am not going to sacrific MY self worth for them.

Half of marriages end in divorce... and If they love the cake.. they might come back to me for a second!

As for styrafoam. "Civilians" don't get that most the time and effort of cake making comes from decorating.

Also if they are really a pain.. oh I have to check my books. Oops I Am booked up that weekend. I am sorry.

If they ask for someone you recommend politely say in the price range you are looking for I would recommend Wal-mart or Costco, I would recommend "Insert cake name you would actually send someone too" and say that, just like you, their shop makes fantastic cakes but you understand how important the price of the cake to them so they should try a mega bakery.

I should try this haggle technique with doctors, my kids (well i dont have kids) day care providers, the mechanic, the list could go on.

lol.

Im getting so sick and tired of articles like that. Then making you feel like a criminal because you charge what you charge.
And then that whole thing about having sheet cakes in the back so they can cut down their costs and want you to give it all to them for nothing.
I dont see them cutting down their magazine prices for the brides to get the information next to nothing! Someone should write the editor just so they know that their jackasses and telling brides that kind of crap is giving them false information!

Im getting so sick and tired of articles like that. Then making you feel like a criminal because you charge what you charge.
And then that whole thing about having sheet cakes in the back so they can cut down their costs and want you to give it all to them for nothing.
I dont see them cutting down their magazine prices for the brides to get the information next to nothing! Someone should write the editor just so they know that their jackasses and telling brides that kind of crap is giving them false information!

That's why I have a minimum on my orders. I'm not going to do anything for less than $40. If you want 1 cupcake or 20 it will be $40.

FYI- If you go to a department store (Wal-Mart, etc.) and you buy the last item of something, and the box is damaged. Just tell the cashier that it is the last one and you want to give it as a gift, but the box is damaged and you want a discount. They will automatically give you 10% off.

I get how sheetcakes can help. and I understand not everyone can afford their whole cake to cost 5 bux a serving. what I hate is when the bride has 200 people and she wants a sheet cake but then a dummy layer.

I am considered a big pushover, but i am learning quickly not to barter. I like to be able to work with a brides budget, yes, that is a must! But that doesn't mean they can have it all for $10

I do Styrofoam cakes for those who have a very small budget and want the big cake look, but the only way it is cheaper (and i have been told my prices are rock bottom anyway...) is if it is just ribbons, and flowers are provided by the bride. If it is customized at all, the price goes up, and then, why not have it real??

we ought to have a big name cake decorator send in a letter to the editor of that mag..... set em' straight! lol

Just when you thought the magz's and websites couldn't drop any lower.

I actually had a repeat customer call me up the other day, order 6 dozen cupcakes, and she says "and they're $1 a cupcake..." I stopped her in her tracks and said that I sell my cupcakes at such and such a price regular, and $X more per dozen if she wants them filled. She said I told her $1 each. I told her that I would never ever quote that to anyone, as I would put myself out of business if I offered that price.
My price is my price. I don't have pre-made cakes shipped in from the main warehouse, along with buckets of premade frostings. Everything is custom, to order, and with just me doing it, its alot of work. People just don't understand.
Therefore, I don't read these kinds of articles, as my soapbox can't take much more of my weight!

Here's what kills me. You order a large pizza that has 8 servings. You pay $16 for the pricier pizza places that are always packed because the pie is good.

Now that's $2 a serving for something that took them 10 to 15 minutes to make. No one haggles, no one complains. Families do this once a week!! But a cake than can take 8 or more hours to create should be the same price (or less) as a pizza?!?

*sigh*

I had pizza tonight and it dawned on me. Then I got really mad! LOL!!

That's an EXCELLENT point Krissy!

Gee....I need to order a tank of heating oil this week, do you think I can haggle the $3.50 gallon price with the oil company?

Don't you guys remember? Its "only cake"....

We should all get the names of the wedding magazines that are publishing this false information and write responses to the editor. If enough people do it maybe they will rethink what they are writing.

I love the remark from krissy_kre wrote. Things that make you go hmmm!!!

I live oversees and you should see what the cost of a small 8 in single layer from the local bakeries costs. They aren't even decorated in the same manner as a wedding cake, no personalization, maybe some chocolate and a piece or two of fruit.They cost at least 3000 yen which is about 30 american dollars. Let's calculate what it would cost for a wedding cake to feed 100 people.

All these articles are about how to get cheaper cake, flowers etc notice they are still pushing expensive dresses _ got to keep the advertisers happy

And do you see them offering ads for their magazines that way? Nope. They want usually between $250 - $400 for a small ad in their magazine. And the price of the magazine is never discounted.
Anyone know which magazine it was that offered this advice? I would like to write a letter to the editor or call their advertising department and see if they haggle their prices!!

At the expo last weekend, I took the class that talked about wedding cake trends (was anyone else there? It was a great class!) and there was a group of ladies who wrote magazine articles who wanted to know what trends we were seeing. She was told that three months notice is NOT enough notice to order a cake (on those stupid time line charts) that dummy cakes are NOT cheaper (half the audience wanted to ring rachel rays neck because she just had a show featuring dummy cakes..) and brides WANT buttercream!

Buddy Valastro was one of the speakers and he even suggested that we form a Cake Mafia (haha!) where we set our prices for cake across the country.....so we won't run into these things. But did ask this lady if the magazines could please stop pushing these fake cakes as being CHEAPER.

Today I was at BJs buying some extra 10 X sugar I wanted (almost 3 dollars for a 4 lb bag now! ) and when I paid the clerk, I said to her "and people wonder why the price of wedding cake has gone up". Haggle over price? I would tell the bride "if you can go to BJs or my distrubitor and get them to lower the price of sugar, I will talk about lowering my prices to you"