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Original poster

What would you except in return for doing a wedding cake as a gift? / AIBU?

171 replies

weddingcakery · 17/03/2023 14:41

A family member got married in December. I offered to make the cake to save them a lot of money. I'm not a professional baker but am pretty good when it comes to cakes. The cake looked and tasted ace Grin

I just wondered if IWBU to expect a thank you in the wedding speeches and/or a thank you card afterwards?

OP posts:
VillanellePinkDress · 18/03/2023 19:27

My friend made my wedding cake.
She was given a thankyou in the speeches and an afternoon tea for 2 gift voucher as a thankyou gift😊

lv884 · 18/03/2023 20:22

That was really kind of you; I know how expensive every day baking is and how even a birthday cake is a risk.

I would have told my husband to make sure he thanked you in his speech if you were a guest, sent you a thank you card saying how much we loved the cake etc., and we also would have bought you a nice gift - because we still would have saved at least hundreds of pounds.

I think thank you cards are gradually becoming a thing of the past. Maybe the couple are totally skint after their wedding, hence the lack of gift. But I think a nice card costs very little and the gesture goes a long way.

CantFindTheBeat · 18/03/2023 20:35

Making a wedding cake as a gift is a MASSIVE favour.

They should be highly grateful and make sure you know it.

Mentioning in the speech to thank for a wonderful cake is the minimum.
An appropriate gesture of gratitude after the wedding is also needed.

I bet you won't be making any christening cake with joy if you're asked.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

General food Weddings
BluetheBear · 18/03/2023 20:37

It's a gift and you're family so no I don't think you should expect more than a thank you but they should have thanked you!

UWhatNow · 18/03/2023 20:50

Since when is a small bit of card a ‘waste of paper’? Especially when you think of all the wasteful gimmicks folks have at weddings!

And the idea that a card is ‘old fashioned’? Maybe if you’re one of those modern cba selfish types..

I don’t blame you for wondering where your formal thank-you is… some people are just grabby and unappreciative I guess.

saraclara · 18/03/2023 21:00

olympicsrock · 18/03/2023 17:09

I’m not sure a card if necessary if they have already given you a heartfelt thanks in person or verbally?

I rarely write cards but always say thank you

A verbal thank you for someone who's spent a fortune in ingredients and hours and hours of their time and real expertise to provide the focus of the wedding reception? The same verbal thank you that you'd give someone who gave you a £20 gift voucher as a wedding present?

No. Really, no.

saraclara · 18/03/2023 21:04

ethelredonagoodday · 18/03/2023 17:21

Yep also this!

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It didn't even have to be a card, since some people have expressed concern about wastage. Even a heartfelt and personal thank you in an email would do the job.

Though if the couple had put planet saving aside to send save the date and invitation cards, I'd be a bit "hmmmm.." if they then used planet saving as a reason for not sending thank you cards.

unicornjewels · 18/03/2023 21:11

I think a thank you card is the least they could do. No matter how close you are, you've gone to a huge effort!

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 22:34

harriethoyle · 18/03/2023 10:17

Yes. It's unbelievably rude not to imo...

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Weird. I'd much rather a generic text/verbal thank you than a copy and pasted x100 thank you note that is just a waste of paper tbh.

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 22:37

To all the people saying it's really rude to not send a thank you note, could you explain what it adds that a verbal, or texted, thank you doesn't?

Luredbyapomegranate · 18/03/2023 22:53

They should have written a card for sure, but if they expressed their appreciation on the day that is the main thing.

Expecting a thank you in the speeches is quite OTT..

RosaBonheur · 18/03/2023 22:54

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 22:37

To all the people saying it's really rude to not send a thank you note, could you explain what it adds that a verbal, or texted, thank you doesn't?

If you need it explaining...

Luredbyapomegranate · 18/03/2023 22:56

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 22:37

To all the people saying it's really rude to not send a thank you note, could you explain what it adds that a verbal, or texted, thank you doesn't?

It takes a bit more effort, that’s why people like it. If you go to the sort of trouble the OP did, it’s nice if someone sits down to write a card to properly say thank you.

Any thank you is the main thing I agree, but a card is nice when someone has done something major for you.

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 23:15

RosaBonheur · 18/03/2023 22:54

If you need it explaining...

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If I need it explaining what??

NortieTortie · 18/03/2023 23:18

Luredbyapomegranate · 18/03/2023 22:56

It takes a bit more effort, that’s why people like it. If you go to the sort of trouble the OP did, it’s nice if someone sits down to write a card to properly say thank you.

Any thank you is the main thing I agree, but a card is nice when someone has done something major for you.

Show quote history

Sorry that was meant to the responses to my original post, where I said I'd have thanked the cake maker in a speech. I had a couple of people telling me it was really super rude, in their opinion, to not send thank you cards to all guests.

CuteCillian · 18/03/2023 23:24

Cards and thank you letters have died a death. I certainly haven't done one for years.
Not in my experience (3 weddings last year) I think wedding thank you cards can easily take a few months to arrive though.

Laquila · 18/03/2023 23:33

Wedding thank you cards are still quite usual where we are and I sent them out for every gift we received (10+ years ago). My mother would have died of shame if I hadn't! She was the kind of Mum who had me writing thank-you notes on Boxing Day every year as a child 😁

I made a wedding cake for a good friend years ago - I was briefly thanked in the speeches and then I think she sent a card too. I guess the nice thing about mentioning it in the speeches is that it draws people's attention on the day to what is the result of a lot of effort, and the nice thing about getting a card is that it's a keepsake, and feels like a bit of effort has gone in. But each to their own really.

ThomasinaLivesHere · 19/03/2023 07:44

Like others said if you send out save the dates and invitations then the excuse of wastage is weak. Fair enough if those first two were by email or phone but I doubt it.

lv884 · 19/03/2023 13:38

Regarding the thank you card v text debate:

We got paper thank you cards which cost a tiny amount in our wedding budget. We ordered cards printed with our favourite wedding photo and a number of family members framed it. Of course not all guests would have kept it but I hope it was put in the recycling eventually, at the very least. My husband and both wrote a good few sentences on each one, thanking each guest for their gift and we made sure we mentioned what they got us. Personally, we didn’t want to just write names above a generic, typed thank you note but each to their own. I think there’s something nice about taking the time to do that and I enjoy receiving thank you cards. Of course a text or even better a call can express gratitude too if money is tight after such an expensive day. But we personally felt it was a small cost and took little time, and weighed it against the time and money our guests paid to be with us. Call me old-fashioned but I send texts many times a day. I think a card is a bit more special and thoughtful.

I can appreciate the debate about the environment, though. I am conscious about the environment hence went paperless with save the dates and invitations, despite loving beautiful stationery. But I also tried my best to avoid any unnecessary stuff on the day which would end up in a landfill. This is often not the case in weddings - many of the ones I’ve been to at least. E.g. I’ve been to weddings with loads of Perspex and acrylic etc. for menus and lots of other things. So this argument doesn’t wash with me when it’s a wedding like this. There are loads of great websites, some probably free to use, to send e-thank you cards?

As a side note, my kids also send little thank you cards - mostly homemade now they’re young, with a picture they took time over - which I think is important. I hope they grow up to show gratitude.

Waterfallgirl · 19/03/2023 13:43

NortieTortie · 17/03/2023 15:13

People really send out thank you cards for every gift they receive at their wedding? That seems like an awful waste of paper when a verbal thank you (or text if opened later) works just fine.

I would've thanked a cake maker in the speech though.

Birthday etc I think a thank you and a text is fine, but wedding no, I think it is the done thing to formally say thank you.
If someone has attended and bought a present then they have spent a lot to be there and so a thank you card is the right thing to do, if they haven’t attended and still thought of you a thank you card also.

RosaBonheur · 19/03/2023 18:21

I think the way you thank someone should be proportionate to what you are thanking them for and how much effort they have gone to for you.

When I was a child we were expected to write thank you letters for Christmas and birthday presents. A birthday card with a £10 note in it merited a handwritten thank you in the post.

Now texting is a thing, it's totally fine to just send a quick message to thank someone for sending you a birthday present or some flowers. And similarly, if someone has had you to stay or round for dinner, you should pre-emptively thank them by bringing flowers or wine or similar, but then afterwards a text is fine.

When it's your wedding, yes, you will have spent a certain amount per head to feed and entertain your guests, but they have probably also spent a lot of money travelling to get there, often staying overnight, and usually giving a relatively expensive present or sum of money as a gift. They'll have given up at least a whole day and evening to attend, if they've travelled a certain distance it'll be a whole weekend, and if it's a destination wedding they'll have had to use up annual leave allowance as well.

I am not at all anti wedding, I generally enjoy attending them and am happy to make an effort to celebrate with friends when they get married. But sometimes, wow, it costs a lot of money and effort to attend. And it cost many of our guests a lot of money and effort to attend our wedding too, and a lot of them were very generous in terms of gifts as well.

Someone who has given you a handmade wedding cake as a present has not just spent money on ingredients (assuming the financial cost of making the cake is part of the gift).

They'll have spent hours planning it, calculating quantities for the number of guests you have, working out the timings of everything to make sure they don't fuck it up, making sure it's not undercooked, not overcooked, not flat, hasn't risen too much, and that it looks how you wanted it to. They're under a huge amount of pressure to turn up at your wedding with a cake that looks and tastes the way you want it to, and if it doesn't, they can't just apologise and give you a refund the way a commercial cake maker could, they'll have to live with knowing that they fucked up your wedding cake. If they are a professional cake maker then they will be doing something for you for free, or at cost, that they would charge someone else a small fortune for, and that anyone else would charge you a small fortune for. If they're not a professional cake maker then the whole experience may well have been very stressful for them, and will probably have taken many more hours of their time than they were anticipating.

If you can't be arsed to at least write them a nice thank you card and stick it in the post, that's pretty poor really.

aSofaNearYou · 19/03/2023 18:25

The thought that there are people out there sitting waiting for Thankyou cards that will never arrives stresses me out a bit - if this used to be a universal thing, it is not anymore. I don't send them for anything and this isn't an active snub, this is just not something I've ever done or known other people do.

I think a gushing Thankyou in person should really be enough, I don't see why it needs a second layer of thanking.

saraclara · 19/03/2023 18:31

Wedding cake apart, wedding gifts merit s thank you card, not only for the reasons given above, but because the giver generally isn't present when they're opened, so doesn't get a verbal thank you.at the time.

My DD was waiting until the wedding photos came through to have thank you cards made, but that was taking way too long to happen. Though I virtually never interfere in anything, I did have to give her a nudge so that she recognised that some generous family members (particularly of a certain generation) were checking in with me that she'd actually received their gift, and that she really needed to acknowledge them. They didn't need a fancy card with a photo on. Anything would do that indicated that she recognised and was thankful for their generous gifts.

RosaBonheur · 19/03/2023 19:02

aSofaNearYou · 19/03/2023 18:25

The thought that there are people out there sitting waiting for Thankyou cards that will never arrives stresses me out a bit - if this used to be a universal thing, it is not anymore. I don't send them for anything and this isn't an active snub, this is just not something I've ever done or known other people do.

I think a gushing Thankyou in person should really be enough, I don't see why it needs a second layer of thanking.

Well it's up to you really, but just be aware of the fact that some people who do nice things for you may see it differently.

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 19/03/2023 19:32

aSofaNearYou · 19/03/2023 18:25

The thought that there are people out there sitting waiting for Thankyou cards that will never arrives stresses me out a bit - if this used to be a universal thing, it is not anymore. I don't send them for anything and this isn't an active snub, this is just not something I've ever done or known other people do.

I think a gushing Thankyou in person should really be enough, I don't see why it needs a second layer of thanking.

Because, as others have said, the effort that goes into acknowledging a gift should be proportionate to the time and effort people have spent attempting to please you.

If you really can't be bothered to send a note of thanks, why not stop accepting gifts and hospitality?