The Cake Boutique

wasted after having met with us. We understand how busy and stressful your schedule must be with planning a wedding from out of state, so we wanted to thank you for taking the time to drive all the way out here to meet with us, even if we weren't a good fit for you. After hearing about how disappointing the consultation was, I made sure to thoroughly look into what happened. I talked with our staff member you met with and also took a look at the footage from our lobby and consultation area to get a better idea of what happened before coming here to respond. I hope that this will offer some insight and correct a few points you have addressed above. Firstly, I would like to address "having to start over." It may not have been made crystal clear when you called to set up your consultation, but the entire point of our consultations is to get an order started for you. We would not have had any other information for you prior to this consultation unless you had already come in for one previously and this was just an additional follow up. At the time of your phone call to set up the consultation, for which I was the one you spoke to, the only information taken and written down was your name and phone number, which was put into our calendar to book you for the consultation. We also asked when your wedding was taking place, and at that time we had not yet booked up. It does appear that you called two additional times after that to change your scheduled appointment, so if any other information was given during those phone calls, I cannot say for certain. When you came in to finally meet with us, us "starting over" was simply us confirming your name, wedding date, and phone number to make sure everything was correct and that nothing had changed, as these things sometimes do change or need updated. This is all done just to make sure we are not working with incorrect or otherwise falsely assumed information. As briefly mentioned, at the time when you had initially called to set up your consultation, we were not yet booked for your date. Being that your wedding is taking place in October, which is perhaps one of, if not the busiest months for weddings, it often books up rather quickly. By the time of your consultation, we still were not fully booked, but as it happened, we did have limited availability and were only able to do local deliveries. Having only 1 delivery vehicle, 1 delivery driver, and 5 other weddings booked on your date already, it simply is not in the realm of our capabilities to deliver to your venue, which would be a 3 hour+ round trip when your venue is an hour and a half away from us. But from what you said, you would have happily picked everything up the day before. If we had had the availability to fit you into our schedule, we would have loved to. We could have even delivered to your venue the day before had arrangements been made. Regarding our cake policy for weddings, yes, you are correct. Our policy as outlined in our contract is that any and all cake products, including sheet cakes, cupcakes, and such, must be provided by us. As explained, we had had issues in the past with customers purchasing cake from different bakeries and calling us with issues regarding cakes that were not ours. Furthermore, it is simply not fair to us, and this is not an uncommon practice or policy within our industry. Would you order fish from one caterer and then hire another to make chicken? This policy is by no means at all applicable to all desserts you plan on having at your wedding, and you were told as much that this policy did not apply to things such as a cookie table, candies, pies, or cheesecakes. Had your intentions to get a cake and then cupcakes from two different bakeries been mentioned in any of your initial phone calls, we would have certainly mentioned this policy to prevent you from, again, wasting your time. What you maybe did not hear your consultant get to before you got up and left exclaiming "I guess we're done, this is garbage" is that this policy is also not upheld in the event of dietary restrictions, allergies, or other extenuating circumstances for which we agree to waive that part of the contract. In fact, we regularly make exceptions for our couples to order cupcakes from one of the local businesses we work with that specializes in gluten and dairy free products. Had you been able to discuss the matter more in depth with your consultant, perhaps an agreement could have been made. Regardless, we are very sorry to have wasted your time and apologize for any frustrations this has caused. We wish you all the best and do sincerely hope that you find someone that better fits your needs and desires for your cake. With warm regards, The Cake Boutique