Hi, fellow cake bakers.

I wanted to know if any of you have decided to only do birthday cakes and leave the wedding cakes out.

I've been doing cakes for a few years now but from my experience  I opted to only do birthday cake as in sheet cakes, round cakes and only two tier cakes. 

I made my decision based how much work is but into a single wedding cake and customers saying it's too much for that cake. And having a cake disaster even though it wasn't my fault (by this I mean that I had a customer that told me that she would put the cake in the fridge until it was about time to cut the cake. My cakes are tres leches and are covered in whipping cream these cakes require to be in the fridge until serving or 30 minutes out the fridge before serving.) She didn't do what was told and written on paper that I made her sign. I went to deliver the cake at the venue at 4pm I told the person in charger if I can but it in the fridge he smiled and said the bride didn't tell me that it needed to be in the fridge. When I heard this I only thought the worst. He took me to the kitchen and put the cake   in the fridge. For my sake I took a picture of the cake in the fridge. 

The next day after the wedding I receive some pictures of the cake OMG. The bride called me angry as can be. I listen to her for at least 15 minutes until I interrupted her. I said " I am sorry I can't help you, you signed an agreement that as soon as I left the cake at your venue you where responsable for what happened to the cake." 

She gave me a bad review and so did some of her friends. Although she tried to ruin the cake business a lot of people stood with me. 

I know that its a little crazy just to do birthday cakes but I have 4 kids and they need more of my time than a wedding cake. 

Raising my hand and waving!

For the reasons of crazy uncooperative brides and too much stress like you mentioned. Birthday, special occasion and anniversaries are good for me. I will leave weddings to those with stouter hearts.

I have only done one wedding cake. I was for my sister. The buttercream melted off the bottom tier on the way to the venue. When I opened the hatch. I lost it. My sister, of all people calmed me down and told me it was still beautiful. And it was certainly delicious. She and her hubby ate the top tier on their anniversary....said it tasted like it was just baked.

I was quite traumatized by that, but my hubby's nephew is getting married and my sister-in-law asked me to do his cake. I guess as long as it's not one of those chandelier cakes, I'll try it lol.......I'm not that sophisticated yet. Ya'll are scaring me though. 

Most of my cakes are buttercream....decorators buttercream with shortening and butter that is. I have to say...knock on wood...I haven't had an issue with melting and they've been in some pretty hot places! If you are using an all butter buttercream perhaps you could change it up for those bigger cakes!

I stopped doing cakes altogether, but I really wish that I had just stopped doing weddings.  The weddings (read brides)  are really what wore me down.  I could not handle it anymore- too much money, too fancy designs for a little money, nit pick all day long.  I could not handle it anymore.

Julia eBay(sjstoner21)

Yikes, the stories!! This is really helpful as I am just starting out with my baking business and have decided not to do large, elaborate wedding cakes. The idea of ruining a wedding scares the bejezzus out of me!  So far, there seems to be plenty of business and I am optimistic that I can be successful without big wedding cakes. But, we'll see if I feel the same in few more months :) 

I too stopped taking orders for all cakes, unless it is for family and that too only if I feel like it.

It feels great to say NO!

Birthday cakes is a lot of work too and sometimes so many colors, I don't like mixing colors and dealing with small details and left over frosting, ugh!