Separate cakes at a joint birthday party

[WittyOrca]

Hi all,
We're organising a birthday party (5yo) for our DC and his friend. We didn't plan to organise anything this year, but a friend's mum suggested a joint party and we didn't object. I now have a feeling that they are just trying to arrange everything the way they like, at a split cost. I don't mind it too much but went a bit mad when his mum suggested baking a cake for 2 of them, taking only into account her son's cake shape and character preference, not asking about my DC's wishes. She is mediocre hobby baker and I would prefer ordering from a professional. My DS would like a cake in a different character shape and we wanted to adhere to this as it's his birthday. We mentioned this to friend's mum and she got pretty mad. She now doesn't even want to talk to us. I'm wondering, should I just give in or order a separate cake to fulfil my DC bday wish, as I've originally planned? Is having 2 cakes (similar size) uncommon at joint parties?

Is the joint party the only celebration or will you be having a separate get together with family etc?

The general rule around here is that you bake/buy a tray bake or something for the kids party that can be easily cut up and handed out, and save the special/nice cake for home (family tea party or whatever) so you get to eat more of it yourself 😆

Haha, we've already celebrated with our in-laws, but I baked a cake as they love homemade😄. There were about 6 ppl so the cake size was manageable to make.

So your home made cake was lovely but the other parent can't cook for toffee according to you. You sound thoroughly unlikeable. I feel very sorry for the other parent.

Where did I say that my cake was lovely?
I baked it as they have an open preference for home made and I had time to make a small cake. I made victoria sponge and I don't think it was amazing. For my DC's party, I don't have time to decorate it they way he'd like and want to go for a safe and tested option.

My DC are now 24,22 & 16 & the only joint birthday parties I've ever come across have been for twins & even then there were always either 2 cakes or a sort of half & half cake - are joint parties with random friends a common thing?

My observation is that they're becoming more common if the kids have birthdays close together. I'm fine with it as it saves other parents time I guess. Cost is a rather complicated issue.
In our case, DC are close friends, about 3 week bday gap.

I don't understand why she'd have a problem with that. We've had a few joint parties and each child has always had their own cake, so they can all blow out the candles when singing happy birthday.

I've also been on both sides of joint kids parties, I.e the one doing most of the organising (the other parent just happy to hand over the money so their kid could have a party) and the one who just does as they're told and hands over the money because I was just happy for DC to have a party that I didn't have to get too involved in and on both sides it was just assumed they would have their own cake.

We had one once when DD was about 8 - there was a place near us that you had to hire the whole place for about 40-50 children. The cost was just that little too much for us to do it alone, a friend in the same class had a birthday about 10 days earlier then my DD. I spoke to her parents and we decided to do it as a shared party in the weekend between the birthdays. Worked really well for us. The girls went down the class list and both said yes or no to who they wanted to invite. All the double yes's were an auto invite - this was about 15 people, we then let them choice 5 more each from school and then we split the remaining places for each child to invite out of school friends.
They had cakes each and we shared the cost of the party favours, made and chosen together.
School friends brought them both a gift, family friends just the child they knew.
All worked really well.

Individual cakes is fine! When we did joint parties there wouldn't have been enough cake to go around if just one anyway (plus I love cake). In fact when I had joint parties with my sister (our birthdays are a few days apart) we still had our own cakes.

I like you, OP.

You seem like a really cool person!

Any update re communication from the other mum? Has she talked to you yet? Are you going ahead with the joint party?

I'm very invested for some reason!

At primary DS and his BF had very close bdays and had quite a few joint parties, he managed to do the same at Seconday and has only ever had a couple of solo parties. I always checked he was happy with this and he said he was, when both boys weren't then we didn't do it and if there was any disagreement over venue etc then again we didn't do it.
The only want this works is to be respectful and communicate well and not just to do it to save money but because its a good idea anyway.
If its too late to change things then at least have individual cakes, I think the only time we did joint cakes it was cupcakes in the theme of the party, which was a sport both boys love and played together

Your friend sounds a bit batty. Just don't go along with the drama. You've told her what you're doing now leave her to it and maybe just get on with things on the day so she needs to come to you. Will your partner speak to you or yours if it's that bad on the day?

Why does it really matter if one cake looks better. It will be clear one is shop-bought and here is homemade.

I am actually doing a joint party this weekend! We are doing two cakes, one for each child with their chosen character/flavour. I am making both, am reasonably good at this and don’t mind swallowing the cost.

YANBU to order a cake with the character your son wants.

You are being pretty catty about her home baking and how she had to tone down your expensive suggestions for cost reasons.

Thank you!😊😊
e managed to talk to her husband this morning who said we were imposing our will on her (I beg to differ). He didn't go into details. For now, we're planning not to pull out.

But if she suggested a joint party in the first place, why would she make such a fuss about our cake preferences? I've never openly criticised her baking skills, and the whole thing started when she tried to force us into accepting her baking one cake for each of the two kids, with a character theme of her son's preference.

She suggested a joint party to save money. Simple as that. Big party, overheads halved.

I’m guessing you’re in another income bracket, whether you realise it or not.

She’s bothered about the cake because a) she had it all planned in her head and it felt nice and straightforward to her b) she hoped to split the cost of making the cake c) she feels insulted that you’ve rejected her home baking design and standards or d) age thinks your commissioned cake will make her work look crap and it’s upset her

Do you think she has misunderstood and thinks you're insisting that your baker makes the cakes for them both?

From what you have described it is hard to understand how they have reached that conclusion isn't it!

Do you feel up to ringing her and making it clear that you want the best for both kids and no hard feelings for you both, so ask her to explain how she feels and why to try to sort it out?

This.

I thought it was pretty clear as I've emphasised that we're getting our son's cake from the baker.
I was considering texting her privately and seeing whether this would help.

Get the cake you want OP and enjoy the party. Make sure your child is equally in the spotlight, smile and ignore her.

and you don’t need to keep justifying why you want a professional cake. They look miles better than the usual standard of homemade and are so worth it for a special occasion.

She sounds childish but this could be solved by talking to her. Not her husband. Not texting. Just pick up the phone and say "come on Sandra, we are all adults here, please stop ignoring me as we have to host this party together. I went with your choice of venue and caterer and have sorted a cake separately which really does not matter in the grand scheme of things."

If she digs her heels in tell her she's being ridiculous.

I'd probably still go and make a fuss of your ds and never speak to the cow again.

Without getting into any reasoning of why they want to do this etc, etc. In my experience of shared kids parties 2 cakes is normal. Sometimes for adults there may just be one very large cake.

I do agree with the direct approach or at least this should clarify things. The unfortunate thing is that it's very much outside my comfort zone. That's why I gave in to everything she proposed so far I guess. However, it is a learning experience for me as well and I probably should just talk to her directly as you proposed.

it’s not too late. Tell her today that it’s clearly not working.
It won’t feel like a birthday for YOUR child, and you kid will remember that.