Money Moral Dilemma: My daughter delivered a wedding cake an hour late - should she fully refund?

oldcodger69

saajan_12 said:

Certainly not a matter for goodwill, but a serious breach of contract.

A cake for an event is clearly time sensitive and a higher expectation of perfection - hence the prices hike when "wedding" is mentioned. A wedding cake is not just about getting an amount of food, but the look and timing help create a stress-free event. 6pm sounds right before a reception, when 1 hour could be the difference between a cake cutting display as scheduled, vs changing up the ordering, or just handing out cake with dessert. 

Yes the customer got the cake, but didn't get the full value from it - I'd think at least 50-100% back is fair.  

I agree.  This is a matter of tact & diplomacy with the customer otherwise, the customer will spread that the baker is unreliable.  Had the baker got the delivery date wrong i.e. late, they would have had to accept the full loss.  The diplomacy here should be more in the region of 50% discount to their customer since the delivery delay obviously marred their event.

bikaga

I mean... of course she took the cake. It was her wedding.

Think about this: Maybe there were kids who had to leave to go to bed before there was cake, maybe the photographer was only hired until the cake cutting time and she had to pay them extra to extend shooting on short notice, maybe there are guests who need to eat at certain times to suit their medication, maybe she's diabetic and had planned around her optimal food / injection times. You don't know.

But someone definitely had to scramble and rearrange the order of events for the day, and she and others would have had to take time out of the big day to chase up your daughter, and spent time worrying rather than enjoying themselves.

I recommend your daughter looks at her contract - if the bride would get a refund or a change for no extra charge if she changed her mind on the day, by all means, don't give a full refund. But your daughter changed the bride's plans on the day without prior conversation, so I think the bride is due her refund. When you charge that much for a cake, it should bring joy, not stress.

John_Gray

Wasn't there a novel by John Steinbeck about this, The Cakes of Wrath...?!

CapeTown

Contract was for 6pm. She didn't deliver.  Full refund and a lesson to be learned 

Rd1994

If they got the cake and were able to eat it for the wedding the they shouldn’t get a full refund (I would only expect this if they rejected it). But I would expect a little more than £100 off as part of the nice thing about having a wedding cake is having it on display for a while before it’s cut. 

KenWDen

What sort of stupid bride gives no margin, could have been a traffic jam, breakdown, road closed. Should have allowed 24 hr! For a credit card company to refund baker can demand cake back - going to be difficult as eaten. If bride wanted a full refund she should have rejected cake and done without, then gone and bought cakes from supermarket. No impressive cake cutting but tough. 25% discount more than generous - don't think a judge would award that!

SStitanic

She should put it down to experience and never deliver late again.

nicjh1973

I'm obviously a lot more forgiving than many. Based on the info provided, if I were the bride & groom & the cake provided was the one agreed on, I'd just be very grateful the matter was rectified quickly & that we had a cake. Mistakes happen, no-one, as far as I can tell suffered any terrible consequences. I'd be happy with the £100 discount. It doesn't do any harm to occasionally cut people some slack if no actual harm has been done.

keithyno.1

The bride's having a laugh and trying it on in my opinion, demanding a full refund simply because it was delivered an hour late. Basically, she's trying to get her wedding cake for free/nowt/zilch/gratis. But there's no such thing as a free lunch (or wedding cake).

I think the goodwill offer of a £100 refund is very reasonable. If they're not happy with that call their bluff and tell them to sue for the rest.

Ian181676

Ask the bride to be specific about what the consequences of late delivery were.  Without knowing that it's impossible to say what a fair amount of compensation is.  If the answer is nothing, other than the bride worrying that it wouldn't turn up at all, then £100 seems reasonable to me.  To justify £450, I'd expect to see evidence of some specific extra cost that the bride incurred as a result, or something significant that couldn't be done because the cake was missing.