Just because someone has a great talent for their hobby, doesn’t mean they want to do it for free.
Asking for favors that require a person’s time means cash may be involved.
Case in point…
Redditor ilovebaking22 wanted to discuss her experience and get some feedback. So naturally, she came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
She asked:
“AITA for not making my brother and his fiancée a wedding cake after they refused to pay me?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I (25 F[emale]) love to bake.”
“It’s a big passion of mine and something I love to do as a hobby in my free time.”
“I have an Instagram account that I use to show off my work, which is mainly the cakes I bake and decorate.”
“I make these cakes for family and friends for birthdays or special occasions (Christmas, Easter etc).”
“I never charge for these cakes, but am always compensated in some way by my family and friends.”
“They’ll usually gift me money or a gift card to my favorite restaurants, or make me a dish in return as a thank you.”
“My younger brother (23 M[ale]) and his fiancée (23 F) were planning their wedding and asked me a few months in advance if I’d be able to make their cake for them?”
“This would be my biggest order yet.”
“They wanted a three-layer cake (wedding was 75 people), in the flavor of strawberry shortcake as it’s their favorite.”
“I was hesitant at first but agreed to make the cake, under the condition that I was compensated for it.”
“I explained to them that this was the biggest order I’ve never had and was going to take up a lot of my time, and labor and be costly.”
“I gave them a VERY fair price for a cake of that caliber. They agreed.”
“I also made it clear that I wanted to be paid before the wedding.”
“I provided them multiple sketches of what the cake would look like.”
“Made a practice batch of the actual cake so that they could sample, and they loved the cake and approved of everything.”
“Fast forward to last week, 6 days before the wedding.”
“I contacted my brother for my payment as I was going to get started on buying the rest of the ingredients for the cake (minus the strawberries I was going to do that closer to the date so they could be fresh).”
“He assured me he’d drop off my check the next day.’
Next day came, brother went M[issing] I[n] A[ction] and no check arrived, so I tried to contact him again.”
“Next day came, no check again.”
“I offered to drive to their house and pick up the check, but they made an excuse that it didn’t work with their schedules.”
“So the day before the wedding I contacted both my brother and his fiancée asking again.”
“They blew up on me telling me that I’m a selfish b*tch for charging them when I don’t charge the rest of the family and that they refused to pay, but demanded me to make the cake.”
“I said no, and explained my terms again.”
“They called me a selfish AH and said I better make the damn cake.”
“I again said no.”
“So the day of the wedding I decided not to attend, due to the amount of disrespect they showed me.”
“Well, my brother, his fiancée, and her family are now BLOWING up my phone sending me all kinds of nasty messages.”
“My family is trying to stay out of it, but don’t think I should’ve screwed them like that.”
“INFO: I was charging them $400.”
“AITA for not making the cake after they refused to pay me?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“For anyone who is giving you a hard time about it, tell them ‘You’re certainly welcome to make a free wedding cake for them!’ NTA.” ~ mdthomas
“Worst part is, it wasn’t just for them.”
“It was by no means a small wedding.”
“It was for 75 people!”
“That’s a lot of cake!” ~ PampaManda_2021
“Hi! Pastry chef here!”
“In my cakes class, they told us that most large weddings like 150+ actually do something like this.”
“It is fairly common for the bottom tiers or top tiers of a wedding cake to be Styrofoam mocks that are just covered in frosting or fondant.”
“And only the tier that is actually going to be cut is real cake or even just a small section of that tier.”
“That section is sliced for the photos and ceremony of the whole first-bit thing then the catering staff takes the cake to the back to ‘cut’ and serve it.”
“Really what’s happening in a lot of cases is the one real tier is being cut and served to the bridal party or boxed up and saved for the couple, and the guests are getting slices from large sheet pan cakes that can much more easily serve a larger number of guests.”
“Based on what we are taught in class, $400 for a completely homemade fully cake 2 tier (likely multiple cake layers per tier standard is 2 or 3) is going to be anywhere from $500-$800 depending on flavors and decorations.”
“$400 is mostly just ingredients supplies and decorations that is a fairly low cost for labor of which there will be TONS.”
“Absolutely NTA.” ~ Current_Stand1867
“Aye, I was going to say that the 400 is probably just covering ingredients.”
“If OP was a business and charged like a restaurant would do on average of a 3.5 multiplier of your ingredient cost to cover staff, rent, and make a bit of profit.”
“Which means they could have paid 1500 dollars for that cake and instead refused to pay 400.”
“It’s insane how cheap they’re being. NTA OP.” ~ DrkWhiteWolf
“So I’m a home baker under cottage foods laws.”
“The smallest cake I’d do for 75 people is a 3 tier 6′-8′-10′ cake, which would feed approximately 78 people with wedding cake slices.”
“I would charge $240 for a naked style cake, no floral arrangements or topper or any colors or anything special.”
“Literal bare minimum.”
“Add on what I’d charge for a fully buttercream-covered cake, fondant, designs, florals, toppers, colors, anything special, would take the price to $400 (extra $20, $40, $60 for each tier size).”
“Taking into consideration that OP likely had to buy extra specialty sized pans for that large of a cake, they’re in the right ballpark with price, maybe even undershooting especially with the rising costs of eggs and butter and the costs of fresh strawberries.”
“Add on that the couple is likely cutting and serving themselves OR having guests cut, they’d need a much larger cake to get 75 party size servings instead of smaller wedding size servings.” ~ Happy_Flow826
“NTA… they agreed to pay you and then jerked you around acting like they were going to.”
“If they couldn’t or didn’t want to pay they should have discussed it with you.”
“They lied and then at the last minute blew up and demanded something for free.”
“Had you all discussed it like adults there could have been compromises or alternatives, but they chose to act like children and avoid you.” ~ thaliagorgon
“NTA. And for a 25 year old woman, you have a remarkably good ability to set and enforce a boundary and not be guilted into doing things.”
“I think many people in your situation would have made the cake out of a sense of guilt and then just been resentful afterward for being out all the time and money.”
“Then they’d be posting here wondering if they’re the AH for being mad and asking for the money over and over after the fact.”
“Your way or the other way, people would be mad.”
“Because they’re entitled users.”
“You shut it down on the front end. Well done!” ~ UsuallyWrite2
“Your brother and his now wife are entitled AHs, but you’re definitely NTA.”
“You were upfront about the charges and $400 for a 75-person wedding cake is pretty inexpensive.”
“They AGREED to this and then tried to guilt you into doing it for free – AT THE LAST MINUTE.”
“The fact that her family is piling on shows the familial level of entitlement going on there.”
“This is the type of thing that would cause me to go either L[ow] C[ontact] or N[o] C[ontact]. It doesn’t sound like you’d be missing out on much.” ~ DbasedNYC
“NTA. It kind of sounds like they intended to not pay right from the start and just figured OP would cave at the last minute.”
“They should have communicated any reservations, outrage, or disappointment well in advance.”
“Textbook case of f**k around and find out.”
“They screwed themselves on this one.”
“The $400 OP was asking is essentially a token amount that might (might!) have covered the cost of ingredients and have enough left over to buy lunch.”
“To say nothing of the time and effort involved that would go uncompensated.”
“They were not finding one for less unless they went to the grocery store pre-made section and did some culinary arts and crafts at home.”
“It’s true that sometimes you sacrifice for friends and family, but this was a huge ask on which the other party tried to break the agreement last minute and still get their way.”
“OP is NTA all day long.” ~ ABeerAndABook
Well OP, Reddit understands your frustration.
Everyone deserves to be paid their worth.
Hopefully, this can be resolved peacefully… one day.