So it's been awhile since I've posted but I thought this behavior was so bizarre and unprofessional that I thought other brides certainly needed to know about it.
I did not end up using Bridal Cakes by Ann for my wedding cake but had read wonderful reviews about her wedding and other occasion cakes. For my bridesmaid luncheon that I am planning I wanted to do a "charm cake". Might be corny but I just thought it would be something goofy and funny for my friends to do. For those of you that don't what that it is, you basically put charms in between the 2 layers of cake with ribbons attached that hang out. The bridesmaids each pull one from the cake and it has like a goofy fortune in it. As I said...corny but depending on the charms you get it could be hilarious.
So anyways, I didn't really want to make it myself so I thought I would use Ann since my parents are from the Kenosha area so it would be easy for us to pick up.
I sent her my inquiry about whether she knew what a "charm cake" was and she responded pretty promptly uncertain of what exactly I meant. I explained it further, which was no problem, as it's kind of a weird idea. She sends me an email back saying that she knows what I'm talking about but she can't do a 2 tier cake (I think she was confused between "tiers" and "layers") for the amount of people I'm having.
I'm not really opposed to leftover cake so I simply emailed her back asking how large of a cake would we need to get to do this. I still didn't quite understand why a double layer cake is impossible to do in a size suitable for 2 people, but again I think she was confused. She didn't really give me the time of day (as you can see later on in my post) so we never got to the point of clarifying that I wanted a simple two 9" cake pans stacked with the charms in between the layers.
So here is what she responded to me asking how large of a cake we would have to do (verbatim...spelling errors and all): "I have no power since Monday and I am trying to do whatever I can to maintain contact with customers. All I am telling you that I can not make 2 tier cake for 10 people. Please, let me get trough this crisis and I can get back to you later."
My jaw literally dropped to the floor at this response. First of all, no where in her previous emails had she ever mentioned not having power. If she had (politely) emailed me earlier in this conversation saying she lost power in the storm and asked if we could discuss my cake plans sometime later this week when her power comes back on I would have been more than happy to stop asking her questions. I understand power outages and how that can disrupt a business. I had plenty of time to plan this since my luncheon is pretty far down the road, but I just wanted to get something on a bakery's schedule. It's not like I was trying to be urgent with my e-mails so I'm not sure why she thought this rude response was justified.
All I can say is I'm glad I did not use her for my wedding cake and I just wanted to make sure my fellow Wisconsin girls were aware of her customer service. I seriously don't know what could have possibly prompted this sort of unprofessional response! I'm still stunned.