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

She’s not charging for two whole cakes. She’s charging 50% for the next cake. Or a 50% refund on the first. I’m a cake maker and she’s being far more generous than I would be,

can’t believe she gave the cake away !

There was no reason for the cake maker to give the cake away when the OP had paid in full for it.
she should have offered it to the OP, decorated or not!

So you would also give away a customer has paid for?

That is very unprofessional. I hope that's in your t&cs.

So you would also give away a customer has paid for?
That is very unprofessional. I hope that's in your t&cs

My T&Cs say that customers cannot cancel within 1 month of the date the cake is required. If they did cancel, I'd always offer them the completed cake anyway, but if they didn't want it, then yes, I'd give away a cake that the customer has paid for. What else would I do with it? I would refund any items that could be reused or hadn't been used yet, such as icing or boards/boxed, and refund delivery, but that would purely be as a gesture of goodwill.

Given that the cake maker in this instance has offered a 50% refund, I think it's perfectly reasonable for her to do whatever she wants with the unused cake.

I did once have someone cancel a wedding cake the night before the big day. The cake was already completed, so the groom came and collected it - very sad to seem him driving away with his wedding cake - I believe he gave it to a care home to use.

She should’ve offered the cake to you since she’s charged you. She shouldn’t charge twice. But should charge you something for the cancellation.

Apologies. I must have read it wrong as I thought she was looking full price again. That I think was a good compromise.

An entirely understandable confusion, since that was what the op initially said…that she was expected to pay full price twice…here’s the ops ever changing details about the costs in order…

’She now expects us to pay again’ from the ops first post. ‘Surely it would be reasonable for her to do it free of charge’

’i Paid £200 and she kept the cake. It’s not hard to grasp. You’ll need physio for that reach.’

’she does have £200 and a free cake. I don’t understand why you are struggling with this.’

’ive asked if there is anything else to pay for the new date and she’s said not yet. I do t want to commit if I have the pay for the whole thing again. I’m actually howling.’

someone else ‘so she’s not actually said she expects you to pay 100% of the price again then?’

’I have no idea how much she will be charging me’

’she is charging 50%’

’she has offered me my deposit (50%)’

’a 50% refund’

‘Wants me to pay again 😂 so I’ve efffectiveky bought her neighbour a cake 😂’

One day before the cake would have been made I worked at a wedding cake shop and we made the cakes in advance so yes you still paid if you cancelled the order because we'd done the work and used up ingredients the shop is being reasonable to charge you

I think that you would be very reasonable to ask for a 50% minimum on your first order, because you ordered a fully decorated cake and got nothing. Fine to give her something for her time, in fact 50% is more than generous I’d say given that she didn’t even decorate it which would i assume be the most time-consuming part.

to be fair, the OPs first posts could be read that way. It wasn’t until several posts in that she heard from the cake maker what the extra charges would be

It’s not just the time though is it? It’s the fact that the cake maker can’t rebook that time at such short notice. She may have turned down other work due to the booking already in place.

You can make that argument, but I think goodwill counts for a lot too, if you want to keep building a customer base.

The cake-maker would be reasonable to have t&c upon booking that cancellations within 48h must be fully paid for.

In this instance though, it seems she didn’t. That’s her oversight.

This depends on how well your business is doing, which we are unaware of. I run my own business and I have a waiting list miles long. I don’t want the business of customers who cancel with short notice and can’t grasp that that comes at a cost of a time slot is reserved for them. There are many people who get a response of ‘sorry I’m fully booked’ from me when I’m not - but will be. I run a banned list and this op would be on it.

Congratulations!

Very fair point.
But if you had offered to freeze the sponge and then gave it away, would you not feel any accountability for that?

She didn't offer to freeze the sponge for OP though, she said she could freeze it to use at another time, I read that to mean she was trying to make OP feel better about cancelling, in that it wouldn't go to waste. OP took it to mean that she was saving it for her, but why would she if OP was 'cancelling', OP never mentioned re-arranging so as far as the cake maker was concerned OP didn't need the cake anymore.

She has offered OP 50% back as she never completed the cake, to cover time wasted, but if there was a chance OP wanted to still have the half made cake, or postpone the party and still have the cake the time to say that was at cancellation phone call, not leave it to chance then complain two days when later the cake maker has disposed of it.

I can't see why the OP would feel better that the sponge she paid for was being used by someone else. If it were me, I would feel a bit worse!
Different if I was being offered some money back but at that point, she wasn't.

Is she charging you the full rate twice? If so, I would be asking why she gave the cake to her neighbour and didn’t offer it to you first, given she expected you to pay for it 🫤
I think 50% surcharge is fair. If she had said at the time that you couldn’t change date and planned to charge you full price again, then that’s different, but had that been the case then I would have expected her to deliver me a birthday cake!

There was poor communication all round. At that point the cake maker hadn’t said either way that she was going to offer a 50% refund/reduction off a second cake. I’m thinking it was a flippant impulsive comment with the intent of helping the op to not feel guilty that she’d wasted her time.

Because I think most people would feel guilty that they’d lost a small business person money. Which the op did because a sale which the cake maker thought was £200 became £100. She essentially didn’t pay for the sponge at all with the £100, but the lost time. One or the other. I may have written that as a consolation’please don’t worry about the wasted sponge’ text.

Oops. JRTFT and see that she’s offered 50%. A fair compromise for the lost booking I think.

I would feel very guilty if I cost a small business money.
But at the freezing sponge point, the OP had paid in full and got nothing. So cake maker is up a sponge and has the money.

If the OP had not gone back to rearrange, the cake maker was still up and sponge and had all the money.