I put Kristy in charge of searching online to see if she could find a style of cake that she liked. We have a friend here in Moses Lake (Becky O’Neill) who makes beautiful wedding cakes and they are delicious too! She is amazing!! And she is very reasonable!!! All you have to do is bring her a picture of what you want and she makes it. She is one of the few stress free wedding details you can count on! So we knew we were set for Moses Lake but Kristy kinda wanted to have a cake cutting in Utah as well. So we started to price cakes in Utah and everything we found was a lot more than we wanted to spend. The problem was that the cake was not high on our priority list. We weren’t looking for the most amazing wedding cake or the most delicious wedding cake to serve, we just wanted a decent looking cake we could cut. Even in Happy Valley, modest priced wedding cakes did not seem to be easy to come by.
So Kristy found this blog online of (what seemed to be) a nice Utah housewife who had a hobby of making cakes. The few cakes that she had made looked nice and her prices weren’t too bad so we contracted with her to make the cake. We gave her the same picture that we had given Becky. We figured it would be pretty interesting to see what two different cake makers would come up with, although we had 100% confidence in Becky’s ability to make us something wonderful even if it wasn’t exactly like the picture.
It was around the first of December that we struck a deal with the “Utah cake lady” and the wedding was Dec. 30th. Well, the agreed upon price immediately started creeping up because apparently there is an up charge for just about everything… any flavor other than vanilla was extra, any fillings were extra, salt, sugar, eggs… extra (just kidding!) Pretty soon we are up to the same price that I was paying Becky except that I know hers will be worth every penny because she has an outstanding portfolio and she has been doing it for years. The Blog lady only has 3 pictures to show and they are all birthday cakes! Oh well. I tell myself it will be fine and I feel good about supporting (what I still assume is) this nice little Utah homemaker as she pursues her dreams!
I was instructed to send her a $70 deposit which she said covers her ingredient fee. I was also told that after she receives the deposit, then she needs to know the final decision on cake flavors. Well, I stuck it in the mail on Dec. 8th. I sent her and Cortney Boice a check at the same time and accidentally put the wrong check in the envelopes. Arghhh. (I hate it when I do something stupid.) So Ashley calls me on Dec. 14th (6 days after I mailed it) and tells me that they had received the wrong check. I immediately contact the cake lady to warn her that she is getting the wrong check but she hadn’t gotten hers yet. We were in contact nearly every day waiting for the check to come so we can arrange a switch. Finally on Dec. 19th she says that the check came (11 days after I mailed it? Hard to imagine but whatever!) Then we spend 3 days trying to arrange a switch. The cake lady was apparently in no position to help with the switch. Poor Ashley has 3 little kids including newborn Henry. Now I know it’s really not “cake lady’s” responsibility to get the checks switched. It was my mistake but about this time I am starting to suspect that I am not working with the sweet Molly Mormon housewife that I had pictured in my mind.
The switch was made on Dec. 21st (thanks to Ashley) and “cake lady” confirmed it by email. On Dec. 22nd she left me a voicemail while I was at Kelsey’s wedding asking me to verify the cake flavors because she wanted to shop for the ingredients the next day. I called her as soon as I got out of the temple and confirmed the flavors. Mind you, we had been in contact every day since Dec. 14th and she hadn’t asked about the cake flavors! She emails me the next morning (Dec. 23rd) and says that because of the delay in payment and getting her the cake flavors, this has now become a rush job and she has to charge me 50% more!!! (which amounted to about $100) Or my other option (how kind of her) was to cancel the order and forfeit the $70 ingredient fee (which she hasn’t even spent on ingredients yet)! Are you kidding me?
So I politely explained to her that if I had known there was a rush order deadline which imposed a steep fine, I could have overnighted her a new check for much less than 50% of the cost of the cake. I was totally ready to cancel that cake order and just do without because I was so ticked off at her but I was not about to let her keep that $70. She was blackmailing me! Holding the cake hostage!! I kindly offered her another $50 to proceed with the order. She agreed. Grrrrr! (That’s me growling in case you couldn’t tell.)
We had not yet settled on whether the cake would be delivered or picked up. She had said early on that she delivered within a 2 mile radius for free (2 miles? Seriously? Are there any churches or reception halls within 2 miles of your home?) but outside of that there would be a little extra charge. Well, a few days before the wedding she tells me (in a perky tone that makes it sound like she is doing me a favor) that her husband would be happy to deliver the cake to us for $150. A hundred and fifty dollars??? Okay, now I just don’t like anything about this woman and I am already hating the cake that I haven’t even seen.
She also informs me the day before we are scheduled to pick up the cake that she wants to be paid in cash. (Well, you should have told me that before I left home three days ago!) I told her I would see what I could do and then purposely sent the boys with a check even though I had cash. Brad and Bryan picked up the cake. Not knowing the trouble that I had had with this woman, when Brad returned he said that the cake lady was odd. When I asked him what he meant, he said, “I don’t know. She was just a strange little cake lady.”
Here is the picture of the cake that Kristy found online that she liked:
Well, here is the "Utah cake lady’s" version of that cake:
Notice how the icing is yellow (not gold) and the cake is falling? I do have to say, though, (in her defense) it didn’t taste too bad. It wasn’t even in the same league as Becky’s cakes (even though it cost more!), but at least it was edible. I hate to waste so much blog time on the cake lady but I had to share it so that I can purge some of the leftover anger!!! There… I think I’m fine now. I can let it go.
The picture doesn't do it justice. The gold swirlies are actually shiny gold just like in the original picture! And her cakes taste even better than they look!!
Thank you, Becky, for making our wedding cake experience in Moses Lake such a treat! I look forward to doing it all over again... and again (5 more times to be exact!!)
4 comments:
wow! that Utah cake is seriously lacking...that lady needs to find a new hobby.
I feel bad for putting you through all this for a pretty awful cake, but at least it makes a good story. Speaking of cake, I'm very much looking forward to eating the rest of Becky O' Neils cake in December.
I want some cake. Okay, I want some of Becky's. She is so talented to be able to copy. It makes you appreciate her talent and easy going attitude when you have the comparisons right next to each other. What a stress...
She was so weird. her front door screen had a lock on the inside that she had to unlock with a key. It seemed like a prison. She kept saying she would meet me somewhere and then last minute cancelled...I can't believe the difference of the two cakes. It is hilarious. No comparison. I think I could have made you a better cake newborn and all. Funny story though...I would have been TICKED.
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