Cake design issues - unreliable supplier or am I being unreasonable?

Cut your losses now!

I had to change photographers due to lack of replies, long delays in responses and general sloppiness....you need full confidence in your suppliers and if you haven't exchanged any money then i'd find someone else now!

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I've sacked a couple of suppliers (one last week!) But in both cases it was rudeness that did it (combined with being rubbish!). I've experienced quite a lot of suppliers being flaky, particularly early on. It's not a great excuse but I do think some suppliers aren't great at the admin side of things and sometimes prioritise closer weddings.

We had problems with one suppllier who took ages to get back to us each time, to begin with we were getting really worried but loved their stuff so persevered and from about six weeks to go they've been excellent.

How long have you got to your day and how much do you like her work? If you love her and you've got ages, give her another month but email her saying you need it by then as you're basing other wedding themes around it. If not, look for someone else. Good luck!

As yet, no - but I admit, I'm getting nervous about my cake supplier too. I messaged her a few days ago to make sure everything was clear - we have some rather unusual requests so they need to be on top of it.

having said that, I would ring her before you get stressed - sometimes emails are a problem and don't get through, or they get read and then moved into a different folder and forgotten about - if you phone her, and she ignores that, then start looking elsewhere.

I'll be phoning my ladies on Tuesday if I haven't heard back from them by then so lets hope we're both satisfied!

Why is it nearly always photographers, is it new photographers that are so bad on the admin side, customer service these days has gone out of the window, people just don't care enough about there clients.☹️

If you're confident the baker is a good one and you live nearby then try this...

Phone her tomorrow and explain that you are in the area on Tuesday visiting a friend. Would it be possible to pop in to see her and view the designs to save her having to email them over to you?

If she agrees then go on Tuesday. If she does not agree then look for someone else. This way, you're giving her time to complete it over the weekend and have it ready for Tuesday. If she wants to keep you as a client she will be ready.

This ^^ is fair and smart.

personally I wouldn't trust a cake supplier who is tight enough to make you pay for samples. Our lady gave my greedy h2b a sackful to clear out her freezers and workspace for free. Samples are their chance to wow you... Not earn.

Our cake lady is w*nk at communication too.

With 11 days to go the most recent response is "all clear, speak to you soon"

Her cakes are amazing though.

I think she is just crud on the business side.

Time will tell!!!

ditto both these. My cake lady baked us three lots of cupcakes which we weren't expecting, not formally anyway, and we had a great chat about our ides. I'm not expecting any problems and if little check ins don't get responses, I'll be calling her. A chat is always better then email, or text etc. quite often suppliers are busy doing the do and can be poor at emails etc. but the FB thing would annoy me.

deffo go with Paula's suggestion tho. Her cakes might be amazing, but there really are lots of amazing cake makes out there.

We just sacked our caterer. We hadn't said outright that we were going with him but we probably would have had he been a bit more professional. Our wedding is in three months and we hadn't heard from him for seven weeks! I had no idea what I needed to hire - tablecloths, glassware, etc and we weren't clear on what menu choices he could offer. When we met with him he was all talk - going on about how we could negotiate with him all the way, how exactly if he takes seven weeks to reply? When we emailed to say we weren't going with him now, he replied within the hour. Funny that.

I would just cut your losses and find someone else. It's not rocket science to have the courtesy to timely reply to people who are paying you.

I can't believe she charged you for the samples. We was having three tiered cake but because of her sample we really wanted another because we could choose. Makes good business sense not to charge.

I think one of the issues with suppliers that seems a regular occurrence is that they're budget ones.

Sure, we all have budgets but a lot of people do it as an extra source of income rather than a fully professional setup, hence the lower price.

That said, there are pros who let the side down too but they are a tine percentage of the total.

Thank you for the replies everyone. I tried calling her today but no answer. I am going to speak to my OH later about the possibility of us 'being in the area' at some point next weekend, it's a really good idea so thank you (I forget who suggested it)! Failing that I saw on her website that she is at a wedding fair in a couple of weeks so I may just pounce on her then

We are lucky in that we still have 15 months until the wedding. The main reason that we were hoping to pay her a deposit and secure her so early is that she was already having enquiries for our date last Christmas! I wasn't too bothered that she charged us for the samples tbh. It was £10 and we did take up a good hour of her time. I had assumed it was the norm to pay

As for the assumption that she is a 'budget' supplier and that is the reason we are having issues I doubt that it is the case as her work has been showcased on many reputable wedding blogs and she is the recommended supplier for a number of venues in our region. Seeing as she hasn't even given me a ballpark figure of how much our idea will cost though, it could be the case. Even if it is, that is certainly not the reason we have chosen her, and even if it was it shouldn't be an excuse for poor service.

Thank you again for your suggestions, hopefully she will return my call/emails soon!

Sorry you're having problems - our cake maker is fab but I did sack my first hair and make up lady (she certainly wasn't budget either!). She was fine with communication most of the time, except for one time when she gave me the wrong day/date to meet her and I was stood around like a lemon for half an hour! She was actually just quite rude and had no tact whatsoever and I knew that if we kept her I'd be walking down the aisle worrying about all my 'problem areas' that she would have pointed out to me that morning!

I think that if you've got 15 months left you can probably take your time with your decision. I'd probably keep trying with the email or telephone and the if I had no luck try to arrange another appointment to see her and talk about the design. If her cakes are amazing then it might be worth seeing what she's got to say about the time she's taking with the design before you make any decisions.