the ongoing saga with Great Cakes

abardo

Ok ladies (and gents), here is an update regarding the situation that I posted about last week with Great Cakes!
I ended up calling Marsha, 3 times Monday, 2 times Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with NO answer and the inability to leave a message due to "her mailbox being full."  So I resorted to text messaging her personal cell number since another Knottie posted she had better success doing that and again, no response.  I texted her one more time last night just asking for a response or a phone call or something and NOTHING.

In the meantime I contacted Megan from Cotton Candy Baking Company since her cupcakes were my favorite at the Expo, and I also contact Susan from Atlantic Cake Company.  Both have been AWESOME.  I thank you all so much for the recommendations.  My fiance and I have scheduled tastings with both tomorrow and I have already disclosed my almond allergy and neither use almond extract! YAY!  They have been so accomodating and wonderful.  I can't wait to try their cake/cupcakes!!

I emailed Marsha tonight basically asking for my deposit back due to a breach of contract since I disclosed by almond allergy to her at the Expo and she said it wasn't an issue and then she decides to tell me that she uses almond extract in all of her icing AFTER I book with her and give her my $200 deposit.  I will keep you all updated with anything I hear back.

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ADVICE AND RECOMMENDATIONS!

Jennyandscott14

I think Megan does cakes also, there are pictures on her Facebook page and she had some at the show. I loved the one covered in roses. I'm thinking about doing that for my cutting cake with a silver initial on top. Good luck. Keep us updated, I understand busy but that many times of not returning your calls, emails, texts etc is just not called for. Can you report her to the wedding association? Isn't that supposed to be a organization that all represent the best in the wedding industry, maybe they would not want this kind of representation?

rvaobxbridetobe

I am sorry things didn't work out for you with Great Cakes.  I had a bad experience with them also.  I had an appointment with Marsha, and when I walked in she made us wait for 40 minutes while she finished up some things in the back.  I found her cakes to be very overpriced. 

We went with Susan at Atlantic Cake Co. and couldn't be happier!

abardo

So my fiance and I traveled to the OBX this weekend and we originally had planned to meet with Marsha from Great Cakes for a tasting, however after the poor communication we decided to schedule tastings with 2 other companies.
Funny thing is....I had the wrong cell phone number for Marsha and I had texted the wrong number twice trying to get a hold of her.  I have to apologize for that, however I had called her office number well over 10 times with no answer and no ability to leave a message due to her mailbox being full. I also had not received an email back from my original request for a tasting.
We ended up meeting with her on Saturday because 15 mins before our scheduled tasting she sent me a text to confirm (that is how I figured out I had written down the wrong number).  My fiance and I decided to go anyhow to meet with her and give her a fair shot, since some of the communcation issues had been my fault.  Well, we met her and she did not even know who I was or that I had booked with her already.   She had me fill out the same paperwork that I already did and go through the design process AGAIN.  I was slightly annoyed with this. I mean, I know that the vendors can't possibily remember all of us but if I have called to schedule a tasting with you, and ESPECIALLY if I have already booked with you and given you a deposit, then I feel you should have a file for me and review it prior to meeting with me.  She did end up having 4 different flavors to taste, however I was unable to taste any but the Key Lime (which I already did at the expo) because they ALL had almond or almond extract in them.  I was very annoyed with this due to the fact that I called her over 2 weeks ago and we discussed this.  She also was very unprofessional and used her finger to clean the knife, then proceeded to cut me a piece of Key Lime cake, AFTER it was used to cut all the other cakes with almond.  She apparently does not understand what an allergy is.  I was extremely disappointed but thought that I needed to give her a fair shot since some of the communication issue I felt was my fault.
We met with Susan from Atlantic Cake Company and Megan from Cotton Candy Baking Company and we liked both.  My fiance REALLY liked Megan's cupcakes and we will probably go with her now. 
I hope my experience will help some of you in the future.

OBX2011

What an experience!  Sorry that you had to deal with all of that with Marsha, especially the wiping of knife w/ finger and the allergy, but the bright side is that all of this happened BEFORE the big day! 

It's promising that you had a much better experience with Megan & Susan!!  It seems as if one of them will be your best bet. Yayyy!

3catmom

This happened to me as well. Luckily, I hadn't ordered a cake yet. I got no responses to my emails and her message box was always full. I finally contacted Just Desserts OBX and got my call answered the first time and had a contract within a week's time! Better yet, Mrs. Johnson even went to the Sea Foam Motel ( where my wedding will be) and checked to see where the best place was to set the cake up. We will have it in their lovely  lobby and like me she had a great experience with the Sea Foam folks who are super nice. It was nice that she went that extra mile so things would go smoothly. I hope you will have a great wedding and a beautiful cake!

Jennyandscott14

Wondering what ever came of your situation. I met a girl the other day who's sister had used Great Cakes and they ended up showing up with the wrong cake.

abardo

What ended up happening was I emailed her and told her that her services were no longer needed and that I wanted my deposit back.  I didn't hear from her for weeks and then all of a sudden I had my deposit in my paypal account online. I still to this day have not heard back from her.  I am just glad that I got my deposit back.  And we have decided to go with Cotton Candy Baking Company and Megan has been amazing!  Thank you all for your help and suggestions!

Jennyandscott14

We are using Cotton Candy also! Yummy! That is good that she at least sent you the deposit back, odd that she won't at least email you. Good luck with the rest of your planning!

missJ2014

SO glad I just read this.. We were planning on scheduling a tasting with Great Cakes, but will no longer be doing that. I have a meeting set up with Atlantic Cake Co., hopefully no problems there.

OBX2011

missJ2014 said:

SO glad I just read this.. We were planning on scheduling a tasting with Great Cakes, but will no longer be doing that. I have a meeting set up with Atlantic Cake Co., hopefully no problems there.

We used Atlantic Cake Co and were very happy! Susan is great to work