Wedding Wrecks
December 3, 2008 Pay very close attention to these cake pairs, now; I wouldn't want you to get the Wreck mixed up with the Inspiration Cake. [eye roll]
First up:
Elodie M. asked her baker to do this, only with far fewer rose petals. The baker obliged by providing this:
Ah, nothing symbolizes the beginning of a new life with the one you love quite like shriveled old rose petals. On the plus side, at least they distract the eye away from the poor cake construction. The weird grass sprigs sprouting haphazardly from the side and top help in that arena, too.
Next, Claire G. discovered the hard way how important "pipemanship" (as opposed to penmanship) is.
What she wanted:
(I believe this is from Martha Stewart.)
Such delicacy, such grace...By the by, I don't monogram much, but I think the middle initial is supposed to be larger than the other two. I also think that if "msk" were a word, it would accurately describe the leveling job done on the leaning wonder here.
And lastly, Hannah W. asked for this, only with square tiers instead of round:
She even brought in the brown ribbon and fresh blue hydrangeas for the bakery to use. Pretty simple, right? Just make some white square tiers. But you know how some bakeries are, always complicating things...
Let's see. Misshapen layers, lumpy icing, no ribbon, electric teal icing "flowers"... What seems to be the problem, Hannah?
Reader Comments (215)
Oh my. The first one looks like it was left outside on the doorstep just as the broom swept out the remnants from a funeral.
The others are just unfortunate and sad.
Pity the poor brides.
Oh those poor brides. What a horrible thing to have to deal with during such a stressful time.
Thanks for the comedy, as usual.
"Let's see. Misshapen layers, lumpy icing, no ribbon, electric teal icing "flowers"... What seems to be the problem, Hannah?"
I don't know, maybe the fact that it's round. Unless of course I'm missing some secret meaning in, "only with square tiers instead of round."
GAAAAAA!
Hate to say it, but I think the Wedding Wrex are my FAVORITE! Heeee!
Those poor brides!
The first one is absolutely pitiful. These cakes always make me feel so terrible for the bride and groom, though! It'd be horrifying to get one of these on your wedding day. D:
Oh...Oh!!...it is too hideous to even look at. What the crap? I would so be crying at my wedding.
I would totally cry if this happened to my wedding cake.
Did they all order through The Three Blind Mice Bakery?
Those brides are so stinkin' picky!
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
I'm quite concerned about the brown layer - brown icing should be banned - it ALWAYS looks wrong!
I feel so sad for these poor couples. I hope they are able to laugh about it now, at least. In my experience, you get what you pay for with a wedding cake.
I think some of the problem may be "Bargain Hunting Brides". The true professional says, "That will be $700" and the pro-wanna-be says "$150". "Ooooooo" says the BHB "I'll go with that one and save sooooo much money.Then I can get the ice sculpture swan too. How hard can making a cake be anyways? I'm giving them a picture to follow" (crickets chirping)
The old saying still holds true - You get what you pay for!
On that last one you also forgot that it was supposed to be square layers. Yep... nothing square about that. It pains me that BRIDES paid for these cakes. I'd just cry.
it never ceases to amaze me, the quality cakes you find and post on this site. especially the wedding cakes. I can not imagine delivering any of the cakes these people got and expecting money for them. my jaw drops every time I see one. I always wonder what goes on in the creators head as she/he steps back and looks over the "masterpiece"
Thanks for making me feel a little more "Pro" every time you post one of these.
Finally! Decent wrecks. Those princess and frogs ones were not wrecks in the least. These....yes these are wrecks in the truest form.
That first one actually made me groan aloud. And the last one looks like a poorly made volcano with flowers in stead of lava.
I'm so glad we went with plain, undecorated cupcakes for our wedding.
After seeing all these horrendous wrecks I feel extremely lucky that my wedding cake was so beautiful and just what I ordered.
-Cara
The first one looks like a nightmare to eat as well as just looking like a nightmarish dying garden. Everyone would have to peel off the abundant shriveled petals that are stuck to the frosting to even eat it. Lame.
These are my FAVORITE wrecks! I love the shoulda been compared to the wreck... these made me LOL!
These are so bad!! What bakers did these people go to?! I wouldn't be filming those cake cuttings.
This makes me afraid to get married.
I went to one wedding where the bride told us her cake didn't show up and ended up serving the standard sliced sheet cake from the restaurant kitchen where her reception was held. Now, I'm beginning to think her wedding cake was a wreck and she just had to hide it from us all in sheer shame!
OH MY GOD!!! The white trash American Beauty cake. The poor bride! The poor, poor bride.
Weddings are stressful enough without having to deal with cakes like these.
ummm
These make me glad I eloped!
Scary stuff. I have to say, I agree along the lines with anonymous, and I would be curious how much these cakes cost. Regardless, the 'professional' is still at fault for selling a skill that they obviously don't have, which there is WAY too much of in the wedding-industry. Sad, sad, sad. I hope all the brides are reviewing the cake makers all over the web to save other brides from this misfortune.
I understand that (some) people wish for a perfect cake that you see in expensive bridal magazines, but you can't really expect to get a Martha Stewart wedding cake on a WalMart budget.
And no offense intended to the WalMart cake decorators. I shop for cake there all the time since I've found Cake Wrecks. ;)
Wow! I actually have made the first one & it was my first wedding cake. Believe me when I say that it turned out more like the first than the second!
And the last one? My sister made it as her first wedding cake & it looked Better than the original one.
How can you go so wrong? Neither are hard cakes? I'm flabbergasted!
Hey, now - to all those who are saying "you get what you pay for..." These are embarrassing no matter where they got them. I used to be a cake decorator at a King Soopers grocery store, and we did quite a few wedding cakes and none of them ever looked as hideous as these! Except the one where the bride asked us to decorate it to match the decor of the Johnny Carinos where she had the reception, but I don't think that was our fault...
the first two look positively stunning compared to that last one. bleurgh!
This is so sad! But at least the cake arrived. The cake at my best friend's wedding almost didn't. We were halfway through dinner before the cake lady arrived. She was cryin' the blues about having been in a car accident. She even brought picutres. Too bad the accident happened two days before the wedding. So once she arrived, she still had to put the cake together and put the icing on it and decorate it! Needless to say, we got a refund.
I am SO thankful my caterer/baker was able to do a good job on my cake (especially since I'd started reading the site just a few weeks before my wedding). It wasn't quite as ... finely detailed ... as I had imagined, but it was still a zillion miles closer - and a zillion times prettier!! - than these people got.
This is why I got married in my pajama pants, and made my own wedding cake out of box.
Jules
If the baker doesn't have the time or talent to replicate a cake, the baker should say "No."
(It seems to me that the main problem is trying to replicate a fondant look with buttercream)
If those were my wedding cakes, I would cry!
Wow, the dead flowers are starting to look pretty good!
That last one. OH.MY. I'm not the greatest at decorating, but I wouldn't even make a hot mess like that. The brown part looks like she got uneven and tried to fix, and then tried again to fix...you know, kind of like when your mom cuts your bangs as a kid, and while evening them up, you end up with no bangs? Anyone? No? Ok. just me. Either way, those are sadly way off from the originals. Bless their cake makin' hearts :(
First my stomach lurched, and then my heart twisted. All these cakes look like they're sitting on nicely arranged tables, looking even worse than they did in the "decorator's" kitchen.
Really, other than the monogramming, none of these designs was at all difficult. For the first time, I can honestly say I could do better than that.
Ya know, I always think it can't get worse. And then I see this. Are you kidding me? On these people's wedding days? These are so wrecktastic that it's insane.
I have to know-- when the cake is delivered/picked up, do the cake 'decorators' look hesitant ("Oh, they are going to kill me for this crap") or excited ("Oh, they're going to love it!") ?? Do they know how bad it really is?
They say rain on your wedding day, or getting pooped on by a bird, brings good luck. Perhaps a cake wreck does too?
Most wedding copy wrecks are wrecks because low-budget bakeries cannot reproduce fancy designs like plaid.
So I have to admit that I'm scratching my head because the bakeries tried to get FANCIER on two of those cakes. Yep, with 1 and 3, you just lay some pre-rolled fondant and add some craft store doo-dads. But they tried to do better.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Adding fake flowers is the fab secret of those who can't decorate cakes. I should know!
Somebody flunked Geometry somewhere along the way. Square vs. Round....not a huge concept. :o)
~Amy B.
All of these cakes would make any bride cry on her wedding day!!! I think the last one is the worst though. Just how difficult is it to tell a round cake from a square cake? I am pretty sure my four year old could tell the difference!
Oh... dear. Those poor, poor women.
I think I'm most flabbergasted by the first one, though the other two are also quite awesome. How hard is it to sprinkle rose petals onto a cake? I'd imagine it would be less difficult than sticking them to the sides...
sadly, I think I could have done better - and I don't make cakes. How hard is it for people to follow simple instructions like "square"? There's no excuse for a mistake like that. I would have told them to take some of these back - they're quite embarrassing.
I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and it has provided me with daily comic relief! The wedding wrecks, as funny as they are, however, just make me sad :( Honestly, how do these bakers/decorators sleep at night?!
This makes me afraid to get married.
Yes, the insanely high divorce rate isn't at all a deterrent, but the fact that YOU MIGHT GET THE WRONG CAKE-- EGADS!-- THAT is cause for mighty fear.
I have to admit that I would LMAO if I got a wreck at my wedding.
These are the types of cakewreck posts I love most (plus the "and under neat that"-type ones).
More please... :>
I have made several wedding cakes for friends and family and am by no means a "professional". But I have to say, my cakes NEVER, NEVER, NEVER looked this bad. I can't believe a professional bakery would let trash like this out of their doors! I feel so bad for the brides...it would just ruin their day.
The sad part is with the "monagram one" you don't even have to pipe 'well' freehand. You could do the script on a computer. Size it right, copy it, do royal icing monograms and let dry. Place AT site and be done.
I am an 'at home' decorator' for just friends and such, but honestly I can do better than all of those. Really the first was easy easy easy, all the baker needed to do is NOT drop his Christmas tree on the damn cake and put the petals on "at the site'. --deep sigh---
I agree with the bargain hunting thing and as a professional (not cakes) I often get mad when people say "i can get it cheaper at XX", but people do figure out you get what you pay for....sadly a wedding you don't get a do-over.
Rule number one of ordering a wedding cake: go with something the baker has already done. They probably have portfolios. Use them.
I have to say you usually do get what you pay for but there are those exceptions. I do cakes from home and have never done a job like these examples. These were not hard cakes to replicate with fondant or buttercream. Someone just should have said "no I am not able to do this scale of cake for you." I think all they saw was $$$ I really wonder how much they asked for in return for these
I have to agree with Mona, my favorites appear to be the poor wedding cake disasters. I feel mucho sympathy for the brides who had so much anticipation for their beautiful cakes and ended up with hideous-ness, BUT (everything in life has a big but) they are so wrecktastic.
Thanks to the brides for sharing their horrors. Elodie M., such a seemingly simple design...such a wrecktastic execution. And the branch thing out of the top...was that actually on the cake, or behind it? Was that requested or improvised by the wreckerator?
Heather, apparently your wreckerator missed that day in kindergarten where they went over basic shapes...circle, square...so easy to confuse...right?
wreck on everyone!
~Bonnie B~