Am I doing something wrong?

[jaina]

Maybe some of you remember a post I made awhile back about the issues we were having with this one bakery for our wedding. If you don't (or want to refresh your memory), the post is here.

I did end up going for a consultation with Kathy herself and it seemed fine. I got a few more of my questions answered, I was pretty happy. We've tasted at two other bakeries since then and they had okay cake, but nothing special, and they were both at least $50 more than Kathy's Cakes, overall.

Then we came up with this stupidly brilliant brainstorm to have our cake be Minas Tirith. A seven-tiered behemoth of a fortress cake, which Rogue would decorate with his little LOTR mini figures. It would be funny, it would be impressive, some of our guests would love it and others would be confused. So I emailed Kathy's again to ask if it would be possible, and if so, what a ballpark cost might be. Here's my email:


Hello,

I've had two wedding appointments with you guys, and my
fiancé and I thought we had decided on what kind of cake
we wanted. However, last weekend we came up with a rather
elaborate, somewhat crazy cake idea. If you've ever seen or
read Lord of the Rings, there's a city called Minas Tirith
which is this huge, white, seven-tiered walled city. In
trying to describe it, people often refer to it as looking
like a wedding cake, and we thought-- wouldn't it be funny
to have a Minas Tirith wedding cake?

Here are a couple of images of what the city might look like
(the first is the city as it appears in the movie, the
second is a fan's concept):

http://shop.decipher.com/TCG/Card.aspx?gameID=7&cardID=3942
http://home.planet.nl/~radiant/Tirjpg.htm

Obviously we wouldn't want all seven layers to be cake; I
remember hearing that you can use styrofoam blocks for extra
layers. And I'm not sure how elaborate we'd want the
decoration to be, although we'd probably go for less rather
than more. Anyway, we're just trying to figure out if
something like this is possible, and if so, what a general
idea of the cost would be. It would still be about 100
slices of cake that we'd need.

Looking forward to hearing back from you!

Thanks,
Caitlin

***

And the following was her reply, and the reason for this post:

***

If you can afford $10.00 a slice, I could tackle it. In the meantime,
I am too busy working with brides who have contracted with us and
have given us deposit money.

You might try Crumbs of Paris. They do castle cakes.

***

Okay, maybe I'm being totally oversensitive (and if I am, please tell me), but does that sound like a total brush-off, or what? "I'm too busy working with people who've already paid us." Well gee, I'm sorry I haven't ponied up any money yet, but I'm trying to make an informed decision here! It's not like my wedding is next month and I'm asking her to do this-- it's four months away! I know this is San Diego and places book fast, but four months is still a fair amount of lead time on a cake, right?

I'm really worried that I'm doing something wrong, that I'm coming off badly in my emails, or I'm committing some major wedding-etiquette faux pas and I don't even know it. I had such great luck finding my florist and photographer, and now this. Is she mad that it's been a month since I first contacted them and I haven't picked yet? Does she think I'm obnoxious for asking for that second consultation and then for this email, asking for something crazy?

I'm really not sure where to go from here. I think the Minas Tirith idea is out; that's just way too much money (esp. compared to the less than $3/slice our original cake was going to cost). We've already tasted at Crumbs of Paris (the place she suggested) and I wasn't too impressed with either their flavors or their service. Or their prices, for that matter. *sigh* Weddings make you cry over the stupidest things.

Comments

[sonata960.livejournal.com]

Sweetie, your email was fine. I would guess that there is annoyance on their part that you haven't chosen them by this point - it sounds like their cakes are generally better than others in your price range, and they are probably used to people jumping in right away. That being said, it's *your* wedding, and if you want to shop around cake makers and throw out ideas, that's your perrogative and they should not respond the way they did, even if they are annoyed! Geez, what horrible customer service.

My take on it is this: it's just cake. No one remembers what the cake tastes like, unless you spend ungodly amounts of money for something way over the top, and then they'll probably remember that it was over the top, and not what it tasted like. I only vaguely remember mine, and that was less than 2 months agao and I *cared*. If you can go with someone who will a) give you good customer service; b) can do your Minas Tirith idea (which is way cool) for a reasonable price if that's what you really want; and c) has cake that only tastes OK compared to this rude place, I would go with them.

Repeat after me: it's just cake! It should be fun!

[jainamsolo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Sue. :) It's good to get a recent bride's view on the issue. Hopefully Missi can help me get some good leads on someone who'd be willing to tackle this, and also hopefully that someone can do banana, lemon, and chocolate cakes. Because, yum.

"It's just cake! It should be fun!"