AIBU to expect the birthday cake booking date changed without extra charge?

That’s a bit harsh on the OP. The baker shouldn’t have offered to freeze the sponge, which implies that it could be reused for OP’s cake at a later date. She absolutely shouldn’t have gifted it to the neighbour without consulting the OP, that’s completely unprofessional.

Agree there should be some charge for time lost, but if she was intending to charge full price, she should have offered to finish the cake for the OP or at least give her the sponge. As it stands, the OP paid £200 for the neighbour’s cake.

would you pay £200 for something, not receive it due to illness/cancellation, and then pay full price again for that same item at a later date?
Granted OP cancelled the Order, but as she had paid in full for a cake, then the baker should have supplied the cake, not said i will freeze it for you and then give it to the neighbour.
I get she is running a small business, but she has effectively had £200 for a cake off one person, and gave that cake to someone else. I completely understand the late timing etc and yes, the baker should not be out of pocket for the work she has done - which is why she should have offered the full cake, decorated etc to OP before doing anything else with it.

Unreasonableness and entitled works both way

So why have you implied she’s charging you another £200 on top of the £200 you paid?

The issue is OP has no cake and no money.

The baker should at least have offered her the cake.

You are being incredibly unreasonable and it is entitled people like you that ruin small businesses. Imagine your employer calling you up and saying don't come in to work tomorrow, we aren't going to pay you for it, but don't worry, you're in work again the day after so that makes up for loss of days pay.

Yabu
However she shouldnt have said freeze then not done it implying you wouldnt need to repay full price.
But honestly if the new party date was more than a few days how would she have freezer space etc.

Its a pity you saved her the time but have paod full price anyway. You should get back the delivery charge.
She should have said before giving it away

I wouldn't expect there to be no further charge at all but I wouldn't expect to pay full whack twice to receive only one cake. Most suppliers would have some flexibility and do some kind of goodwill gesture on the price of a second cake, I also don't think it's professional to give away the cake that's been paid for to a 3rd party without consulting the customer first. If I had to pay twice I'd make sure the second fee was going to a more reliable baker.

I would express dismay that she gave the cake away (despite you having already paid for delivery) and didn’t freeze it as she said she would.

I wouldn’t expect to pay another £200 for a replacement cake, but paying part of the cost would be reasonable. Although if I couldn’t see eye-to-eye with the cake baker on this, I’d make my own cake this time.

I'd be happy to pay twice but I would also want both cakes.

You forfeited the first cake on the understanding that the sponge could be saved for a later date.

The cake maker changed that understanding without communication so that part is on her.

Right so she’s not actually charging you the full amount again then? I think that’s what you’ve said and that’s the outrage most are responding to?

Problem is most things if you cancel within 48 hours or sometimes longer you get no refund it’s the expected.

I think this was quite a bit of miscommunication. You needed to make her aware you wanted to still use her/the cake just at a later date.

She took you as just cancelling full stop.

So to her she still paid for all the ingredients, had cooked the cake, her time, her utilities.

All that was left was the icing and her time for that but you just told her you didn’t want it anymore. I think the comment about freezing the cake left it a bit ambiguous you assumed for you and she seems like she was just chatting away.

Once you cancel within a 48hour time frame with no refund it’s up to the business what they do and in this case she gave the sponge away. I’ve seen a few cakes go up on Facebook before last minute cancelling does anybody want this for £10 so it doesn’t go to waste, for a fully decorated princess or sponge bob cake.

I think a lot of this hinges on the way you communicated the cancellation to her.

Realising you were dealing with a poorly child and things were up in the air:
-you didn’t mention rebooking
-you didn’t ask for the cake or say could she keep it for you at a later date
-she confirmed she would freeze it but presumably she thought she’d use it for another cake and then decided not to.
-she didn’t say she was freezing it for your rebooked party as you didn’t mention rebooking
-she then didn’t hear from you for 2 days so gave the cake away

I do think it’s unreasonable of her to charge you the full amount again and I’d perhaps ask given that you paid £200 for a cake you’d never received, if she could offer you a discounted rate for a replacement and express your disappointment that she’s given the cake you paid for away

So she’s not actually said she expects you to pay 100% of the price again then?

Hmm difficult one I would think it’s more about her time than the cost of the cake.
I think if she couldn’t do the new date she should have either given a full refund if she was going to reuse the cake, or offered you the undecorated cake and a partial refund.
If she could manage the new date she should have frozen the cake and decorated it on the new date as long as you were happy with that.
If you wanted a brand new cake then yes she should have charged again but it sounds like you were happy with the sponge being frozen.

I think she should have made it clear at the point you cancelled that it was fully chargeable and not said she was freezing it, and offered to drop it off anyway for you, then you would have been able to make your decision with all of the information before the neighbour had eaten your cake.

Well I can’t understand it for you. That one’s on you. Bizarre that you can’t understand ingredients and labour cost money and somehow think the cake made itself for free and she’s just sitting on the £200 though.

I don’ t think you are being unreasonable if you left it with the expectation you would be using the frozen one in the future, however, if you left it up in the air then yes YABU how was she to know you’d be back wanting another one?

I think I would buy a cake from someone else rather than pay an additional £200 for another cake.
I assume your £200 already paid is gone but given that she's cheerily given your cake away to a neighbour and expected you to pay £400 quid total, I wouldn't want to use her company.

I think this should all have been discussed at the point of cancelling so you could agree next steps. At the very least you should have been given the cake! Ideally you would have agreed that she freeze it until you needed it. I appreciate you may need to pay extra but it shouldn’t be the whole price again.

Part of those 200£ was consumed when creating "the free cake".