I was just at a wedding where they got savvy to the price thumbscrews. You are, in fact, being taken advantage of.
But pay cheerfully. Have a drink, write a nasty note to remind them they won’t get your business for anything else.
My buddy bought several cakes, not tiered, no bride&groom decorations. The baker asked “are you sure this isn’t a wedding”? “No, no, just a family reunion”. A shrug, same price as quoted.
Then ignore it and concentrate on the wedding. If this is the worst thing that can happen, you’re going to be fine.
This is the problem with the wedding business. Sure, word of mouth sort of matters, but most customers are one-time-only clients. While a really really great wedding service provider will probably benefit from word-of-mouth, I don’t think the bad news spreads as effectively. How many future brides do you know that you will have this conversation with? Some, but there are still plenty of couples doing their planning who will choose via the yellow pages and will stumble on this.
When you get back from the honeymoon, I’d write a letter to the bakery. I’d tell them it was irresponsible and unprofessional to give you a quote that was only low-end. They should have quoted you a reasonable range. And I’d tell them that if they don’t offer you some remedy, you’ll be forces, as a responsible consumer, to notify other brides of their this practice. Someone was dead-on about telling the other service providers (photographer, florist, etc) too. Brides and grooms do often ask them for recommendations, so that will get the word out.
