OK heres the story. I’m getting married this Saturday, July 1. About 6 weeks ago we put down a 50 dollar deposit on a wedding cake after being quoted a price of $275-325 for 100 people on a standard wedding cake. That price seemed high, but the bakery came highly reccomended.
NOW this week as I’m about to pay the remainder of the balance, this bitch is telling us that the price of the cake is $391 PLUS my deposit! She said the original price was the “low end starting price” for cakes.
$441 FOR A GODAMMNED WEDDING CAKE? Obviously, we are getting hosed. This jerk knows she has us where she wants us- I doubt we can find a baker who can make us a cake on 6 days notice. Also, she baked a bridal shower cake that frankly sucked, but like I said this place came highly reccomended, and it was a freebie anyway.
I’d like to confront this woman, but I don’t need to find any “special sauce” in my cake on wedding day, if you know what I mean.
The only thing I can think of to do is to pay this bitch with a credit card, and if the cake does end up sucking, challenge the payment through the credit card company, brecause for $400, this cake had better give me an orgasm.
Maybe $441 is pretty standard fare for a cake- it’s just 100 bucks over the original cake, and we think this is a last minute shakedown.
Dopers- any suggestions; or are we just going to have to bend over and take it like a good married couple?
Attach the word “wedding” to anything and triple the price.
Walk into a bakery and tell them that you need a large cake, and if they wouldn’t mind, make it tiered. No big deal. Next, walk in and say “I need a wedding cake.” After that, bend over and prepare yourself.
Aside from this, I don’t suppose you have anything in writing?
If not, chalk it up to life and enjoy the wedding. After the wedding, go back and let them know how you feel about how you were taken advantage and make sure they know that you will go out of your way to let people know how they screwed you. Then do it.
Whatever you do, make sure you take care of this after the wedding. To avoid that “special sauce” you were talking about, pay for the cake with a smile. Take care of the rest later.
Is she the manager/owner? Or is she just someone who works there? Find out. If she’s just an employee, leave her alone. Whatever she said/did was something she was trained to do. Ask to speak to a manager/owner. Tell this person that you don’t appreciate the service you got or the way you were manipulated. Let that person know you surely won’t recommend the bakery to anyone and suggest that, in the future, it might be better if, instead of only giving out the “low end starting price”, that they should give potential purchasers examples of cakes and prices and what might make that price go higher than the “low end starting price”. Do this in a courteous and polite manner and you may even get a refund of some kind or some doughnuts or something.
Our restaurant chef makes wedding cakes. When she first started out she had trouble getting customers even though her cake was and is fantastic. A friend recommended she raise her prices. Now we do a thriving June business in wedding cakes. It’s a weird economy.
I know this may sound weird but if you have a large chain-type grocery store in your area, they can bake wedding cakes also. This is probably going to sound tacky as all get-out to you but my wedding cake was made in a Wal-Mart bakery. I didn’t have a little mints/peanuts/cake-type wedding receptions either. I had a fully catered, sit-down affair. My cake was exactly the way I wanted it (non-stacked tiers, a cascade cake–6 layers each on a different height tier sitting in a spiral.) My cake was $225 with a $50 deposit. It was ordered and made within five days. (No rush.) Maybe you could try something like that. Although, I think they only make cakes in the standard white wedding cake flavor. (Frosting is different–any color.)
Was the quote in writing? If so, pay for the cake, then take the place to small-claims court. You may get back the $116.
At the very least, you can be a thorn on this persons side.
No, your 1st thought was correct. Pay for the cake with a Credit card then challenge the debit with the co, or at least the $50 part. Write tham a stern but polite letter 1st, demanding a $50/$100 refund, then if they don’t send it, dispute the charge. It works. Also use your local paper’s consumer line column.
In addition, at the wedding, you can stand up and speak, and say that you were completely ripped off by that bakery, and that none of these folks should EVER use it. 100 people plus all their families in the area could mean some negative business.
I agree with evilbeth. I was just married last December, and we paid over $500 for a terrible tasting cake. It looked pretty, but I didn’t really care about that when my wife was shoving it in my face.
I don’t know what chains you have, but here we have Albertson’s mainly and they have a wonderful bakery.
It may be inappropriate to stand up and make a toast about an expensive wedding cake, but there’s nothing to stop you from telling the florist, the photographer, the banquet hall manager, etc. what a rip-off the baker was. These people handle dozens or even hundreds of weddings a year, and they all depend on word of mouth and referrals. Once the word gets around that so-and-so is gouging, their business will start to dry up quickly.
I agree with kunilou, word of mouth and reputation are everything in the wedding business. If you want to see how I dealt with the people who pissed me off at my wedding, go to my wedding website and click on the Aftermath.
Paying on the credit card is a good idea too, although speaking from experience when the wedding is over you may feel too tired and wedding-ed out to deal with it. Who knows? In any case, I hope that you have a wonderful wedding and that this doesn’t put a damper on the evening.
Unless you have a contract with the bakery, you could do what my sister did.
She had several small, delicious, fresh cakes and tortes from area bakeries. People could choose what they liked, the look was elegant and the cakes didn’t have that 3 week- old-refrigerated- sugar-starting-to- crystalize-taste that wedding cake usually has.
I’ll second kunilou and add one more thing. I used to work at a historic site where they had over 300 weddings a year. We had business cards for all the local bakeries, etc. A lot of our weddings came from out of state, so our list was their only way to find a good local caterer, bakery, florist, etc.
If someone told us a story like yours, the business card would have been OUT of our list, and we would have seriously considered not using them for anything anymore. (Some of our cakes came from the caterer.) And we would explain to them EXACTLY why we were removing them from our “recommended” list.
So I’d tell everyone you’re working with on this wedding. Especially the caterer and banquet hall manager. They’d probably get the most questions about “Who should I go to for a cake??” from people.
Paying by credit card and disputing it later is a good idea. Another thing you can do is file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I did this once and the results were fabulous!! Word of mouth is a good idea too. If you tell 10 of your friends about this bakery and they tell 10 and so on and so forth, imagine the damage you could do to that business.
It really sucks that you have to pay that much for a cake anyway. My sister-in-law’s mother makes wedding cakes and birthday cakes as a side job and they’re just wonderful!! She only charged me $20.00 for my wedding cake and I had a 3 tier cake and 2 side cakes!! She only charges me $10.00 for birthday cakes too!
Good luck with the cake!! (Oh, and the wedding too!)
Poor uglytruth. I agree with evilbeth. You can try chain grocery stores or bakeshops. I’ve gotten very nice cakes from the in-store bakeries at Dominick’s and Cub Foods around here on 24 hours notice (sheet cakes, though, not wedding cakes but it can’t hurt to check it out). If you can find anyplace that can accomodate you, dump the jerk, tell your story to everyone who’ll listen–and end with recommending the cake provider who came through in a pinch.
Whether you end up having to get your cake from this person or not, make sure she knows (after the wedding cake is safely in-hand, of course) that you’ll be passing on your experience to your family and friends, as well as the caterer, hall manager, etc.
