Wedding cupcake mishap AIBU bride wants full refund for me wrecking her big day?

[ilovepombears]

I run a home based cake making business a few months ago I had a request from a bride to make 100 black cupcakes for her wedding. She provided the wrappers and black food colouring paste and also black and white photo toppers of the couple as she asked it this would bring the costs down so I deducted this from the bill.

Today is her wedding day and there seems to be a massive miscommunication somewhere along the lines.
Friday I baked all 100 cupcakes and whilst I was waiting for them to cool I text her and asked if she was sure she wanted them all black buttercream or if she would prefer black and white or black and grey. She texted back and said 50 black 50 grey would be ace. I then had another text asking where the buttercream was going. This should of really set off alarm bells. I told her the buttercream would be going on top of each cupcake. No further response.

As the wedding is out of town she came to collect them yesterday. They looked stunning and really complimented her wedding theme. She seemed a bit off when collecting but said she liked them.

Two hours later I receive a text from her saying how dissapointed she is with the cakes and how they are not as disscused as the cakes are white.

I didn't understand where she was coming from so I tried to call but she didn't answer then text to say I have wrecked her wedding.

After a while of toing and froing it transpires what the bride in her head has ordered is 50 black and 50 grey sponge cupcakes as in no buttercream frosting. Where I was suppose to put the picture toppers is still a mystery.

She has seen hundreds of images of my work and I have never produced a nude cupcake. Always have frosting on them.

She has not given me time to rectify the issue. Not that I would as I am not having my name associated with what she thinks she has ordered. Not would I let black sponges out to be eaten as they will taste horrendous but they have so much colour in them can you imagine the additives.

She is now asking for a full refund as I have "screwed up her order" what do I do? I'm my head she has received what she has ordered.

If you guys ordered a black & grey cupcake how would you interoperate that? What she thinks or what I have made her.

Tell her she can have a full refund if she returns them. Like you normally do if you don't want an item you've bought.

I assumed you meant black sponge when I read your first paragraph, and I am at a loss as to how it got so far down the line without details like this being confirmed. Surely there is more than one option for the sponge and frosting, so I would have expected you to give her these options during the ordering process and double check exactly what she wanted in good time before the event. I think there is fault on both sides here: you for not having an ordering process which encourages the customer to specify what they want and for making assumptions about her preferences, and her for not querying things earlier if she had reservations about the information you had given her.
Would you be able to offer her a partial refund to acknowledge that there were errors on both your parts?

When I read your OP, I assumed that the cupcakes themselves were actually black and grey.

So probably here has been miscommunication on both sides.

However, the bride is being a twat to say that the fact that the sponge itself was not black or grey spoiled her wedding. As if anyone would give a shit what colour the cakes were. She's trying it on and your cakes (normal sponge with coloured topping) sound nice.

Actually I would question the sanity of anyone who puts a photo topping of themselves on a cupcake. The vanity and self-obsession of some people is quite staggering.

I'm afraid, not being a cupcake connoisseur but knowing that sponge can be dyed, if I asked for black cupcakes I would expect both the cake and the icing to be black. If anything white was visible I'd be very disappointed and expect this to have been discussed with me when ordering.

I might make a chocolate cupcake with vanilla icing for example. Two different flavours and colours. I wouldn't call it a vanilla cupcake just because it has vanilla icing.

I think you need to stop visualising orders 'in your head' based on your own knowledge and start writing things down, or drawing them, clearly, so customers can discuss their requirements with you based on shared knowledge.

Having attempted to colour sponge in the past, I think the food colouring has a much stronger impact on the taste of the sponge than it does on the icing. The icing flavour is stronger (due to the vast amount of sugar!) so fights the aftertaste of the food colourings better. Plus you have the actual sponge tasting normal underneath.

If you just had black sponge (which would take a fair amount of colouring to achieve) and no buttercream then the taste of the colouring would be much more intense.

I reckon in her head they looked great but when she saw them they weren't as she imagined but wanted cake or someone tried them and said they were horrible so she know wants her money back.

Tell her to fuck off.

I have black wiltons paste, used it for superhero themed stuff and didn't need loads at all.

As it is its done now and it is just miscommunication, hopefully the wedding will go well and she won't care about the cake issue afterwards.

Maybe add a disclaimer to sign ie sold as seen so once viewed and collected they are accepting they are happy with the product.

Tbh I don't know how cake businesses survive, I make cakes for family and occasionally friends but people wouldn't pay what it costs in time etc. They just think, eggs, butter, flour etc.. And even that adds up! I just do it for fun.

Hmm this does not add up - with the toppers, she must have known they required a icing/frosting? I once made black cupcakes for my son's batman themed wedding, and the children wouldn't eat them, they did look horrible! I was relieved as I put so much colouring in, cannot be good!

I think I would offer some money back, just make sure you are at least covering your costs - but make it clear it is a good will gesture, and your texts made it perfectly clear that you were frosting the cakes - email this info to her and be quite clear that you are not in the wrong. I think in future you should draw something up in writing to make it explicitly clear what you will provide - and have it signed or at least agreed to via email. Simply to cover your own back, as clearly there are chancers out there!

It does not seem normal to me to behave like this immediately prior to the wedding. Perhaps its stress and she will calm down later, or perhaps there has been a huge bust up, the wedding isn't taking place, and she needs the wedding money back to relocate to Mexico due to participating in a huge crime spree watches too much crap tv

For black cake though I started with a chocolate batter so it was dark to begin with, not a vanilla or plain one iyswim.

I made a black sponge cake for my birthday. It tasted great the secret is to make a dark chocolate sponge then add the black food colouring. It looked dark grey but when cooked it was really black.

It does not seem normal to me to behave like this immediately prior to the wedding. Perhaps its stress and she will calm down later, or perhaps there has been a huge bust up, the wedding isn't taking place, and she needs the wedding money back to relocate to Mexico due to participating in a huge crime spree watches too much crap tv.

, love this.

hold up....batman themed wedding??

Oh and I had a photo of myself on the top.

It could definitely be done if you started with dark chocolate, but then I would expect the bride to have specified chocolate sponge. I bet if OP had done chocolate sponges the bride would have complained she didn't want chocolate either...

If you are a business taking people's money then I'm afraid it's down to you to be sure about what is being ordered. A tick sheet as suggested above is a good idea for the future.

I think you will have to wish her the best for her big day, and agree you'll speak afterwards at a date which is good for her. She may have calmed down, she may not have. But I'd offer a full refund and chalk it down to experience. The bad publicity could kill your business and it's not worth it.

I would not be taking people's advice to tell her to fuck off.

Ha ha Kate - was meant to say party lol!!!!! Good spot!!! Now that would be awesome!

A quick look on Pinterest, black velvet or midnight cakes (I reckon bride was looking there) and recipes start with either chocolate or coffee and even recommend what brand of coloring to use with no after taste.
Thought I was going crazy for a moment.
Although there is also a gorgeous looking orange and black one. And the lime green looks wow.

Was the order placed at a distance (e.g. internet, phone), or did she make the order in person? If not in person, there is an onus to provide clear information to the customer to ensure they know what they are getting. It might be that you make clear on your website that e.g. a black cupcake = a white cupcake with a black frosting. When I read your first post, I did assume that a black cupcake = black sponge.

For the future, it is worth being crystal clear in your follow up paper work/e-mail to the customer, including a detailed desciption of what they have ordered.

That said, your customer cannot have her cake and eat it! If the cupcakes are consumed, then that implies an acceptance of the order.

Tbh if I wanted black sponge cakes I would say "black cupcakes" if I wanted cupcakes with black icing then I'd say "cupcakes with black frosting" so I would say her request was clear. Not sure about the frosting issue tbh. You checked though so she really needed to speak up then.

I think you should possibly offer a partial refund simply because I think she was clear enough. Totally accept that others may read it differently though.

I have made black cake before- it doesn't taste any different if you use decent black extra paste.

She might be trying it on, but really both of you should have been more specific about what you wanted. When I make cakes for people the last thing g I do is specify EXACTLY what they will be getting, if you had done that it would have been clear you were talking about different things.

You not having any pics of non frosted cakes is neither here nor there, as a non cake maker that would have been less obvious to her. It should generally be assumed that customers have no cake knowledge at all and they can't be expected to assume anything about cakes- which is why spelling it out before making is completely necessary.

It's a pain, and there's a small charge chance she's having you on but really I think the fault lies with you, sorry.