Wedding cake leaning like Tower of Pisa

O.K. .... so the wedding was MY DAUGHTERS'.... and I was the one who paid $425 for the cake... and now I am devastatedly pissed?!!

I know this is not doom... but it is MY current doom..

That's totally fair. I hope you took pictures of it.

Call the cake maker and tell them you want a refund. They'll probably negotiate a discount for you. I'd get 50% off, because let's face it, wedding products are triple the price they should be.

At 50% off they haven't lost anything.

Remind them that you know other brides-to-be, and that you want to be able to recommend them to those people - they will be able to read between the lines. (Don't threaten them - that's called tortious interference/blackmail or something along those lines.)

If they don't meet your demand, sue'em in small claims court and take the photos.

And tell your friends and brides-to-be.

Last Edited by AwthrAwthr on 07/12/2010 03:19 AM

WTF would you pay that much for a cake? Coulda made it yourself for under $50. Or had someone else make it alot cheaper. Cakes are fairly easy to decorate. We made my wedding cake and it was soooooo good. Had 3 tiers and 2 satellite cakes.

Also made a killer grooms cake.

They should give you a total refund for fukin up the cake. 5 layers needed something to keep it from sliding or tiers.

OMG! I went to a wedding yesterday and the cake was leaning, too. It was only three tiers and weighed a good 20 lbs! They had to sharpen knives to cut it. No kidding!

Have you ever priced a wedding cake? It's like highway robbery. Everything connected to weddings cost a fortune. It's one of life's mysteries how the wedding industry is able to get away with it.

My wife makes wedding cakes, and I can tell you that the 20-60 hours of making sugar flowers and delivering a perfect product is worth a whole lot more than you would expect.

Additional note: If you do the math and figure the time a good decorator will spend on a cake, the profit is actually quite lower than most other fields ... probably including your own line of work. My wife does it because she loves it.

The worst possible thing that could ever happen is an unhappy customer. thank goodness my wife has not encountered this. However, the most common reason for a cake failure in instances when somebody wants a three, four, or five tier cake assembled many hours before the reception. The longer it stands, the more it will fall. Gravity is not kind to large cakes, and they are not made for long-term showing. They are simply not made for that. The only way to make a cake last longer is to make it drier and denser, and then the flavor suffers.

Tip: Never try to make your wedding cake a permanent fixture. If you want it set up far in advance, tell the chef, and they should adjust the ingredients accordingly. Just remember that cakes only last a long time in movies. In the real world, gravity is a real fact, and tall cakes do not win the battle of time and gravity.

Very informative post, thanks.

Yes, a nice wedding cake is worth that price, but not a leaning one. Sounds like somebody took a corner a tad too fast when they delivered it.

hi wat you up to pisa tower

Wow, that is a lot for a cake - was the goal to impress others or one up?

It's not so much a mystery, as opposed to immoral retailers taking advantage of the psychology of soon-to-be couples.

When couples shop together for their one and only day, retailers no generally the person paying will not complain in front of their other half or family member about price - to keep them happy. Refusing something on the basis of cost just before wedding gives the signal they will have to settle for something inferior. Or that the person/couple getting married 'is not good enough' for the price being paid.

Kind of like upping the price of meals on Valentine's day...as restaurateurs know the guy is not going to complain in front of the person he is trying to impress on such a 'special day'.

in my country if the wedding cake is messed up it is a bad omen for the marriage.



i kid i kid.

Hey All-
I am a professional cake artist. www.thecakeartistonline.com We charge $3/serving for wedding cakes...in a small town. This equals approx $700 for a 5 tier cake. Many cake people in urban areas charge 8-15 dollars a serving! $3-4,000 cakes are not uncommon. Remember many weddings cost over $30,000....so a grand for a GOOD cake is cheap.

Now these prices (even our $700) are for PROFESSIONAL design, construction, and decorating. We use internal cake support systems to guarantee a cake not to lean or fall down. These are not "Aunt Edna's" cakes. There may be 20-40 hours of work in a cake....so we are not screwing people price wise. We have a professional bakery with at least $30,000 of equipment to pay for.

If you want a cheap cake guaranteed to look cheap and fall down- make it yourself or have a relative do it. If you decide to have a pro do it? Shop around and ask for references and photos of previous work. You DO deserve a refund....but you bought a really cheap cake and you get what you pay for.