Stefan and I got married here in Germany 6 years ago and our experience buying a wedding
cake really surprised both of us.
Hey everyone, Dana here!
When Stefan and I got married in Germany we tried our best to mix together the American
and German wedding traditions, and one thing that we agreed upon as far as the American
wedding traditions went was having an American-style wedding cake with multiple tiers.
There weren't really too many things that I had always dreamed about having at my wedding
but a multiple tiered cake was one of them.
And Stefan agreed that it just kind of added to the whole wedding-feel.
And also, we just love cake, and with multiple tiers we could have a different flavor of
cake on each tier.
So a few months before the wedding we planned out a date to go cake shopping in Germany,
and wow, I was definitely surprised by how it all went down.
As I said, we went into the cake shopping experience knowing that we wanted multiple tiers
-- I was thinking at least three, but I knew that I would probably be able to be talked
into four by the right salesperson -- we wanted a different flavor for each tier; we wanted
the cake to be colorful; and I wanted it to be covered in buttercream rather than fondant.
So first of all let's talk about my expectations going into this cake shopping day.
How would it work in the U.S.?
In the U.S. you would probably make an appointment at a cake shop for a tasting, where you'd
go in and talk with someone who works there, try a few different flavors of cake, a few
different options of frosting; we would tell the person what we were thinking as far as
the wedding cake goes and the person at the bakery would tell us that it's our big special
day and that they would work with us to create the cake of our dreams.
Sometimes this experience could also come with the tendency to try to up-sell in the U.S.
As I said before, I was thinking about three tiers but I could have been talked into four.
I had a soft top limit of what I wanted to spend, and I call it soft because I knew that
if the person at the bakery had offered this and that and this and that to create my wedding
cake of my dreams, I could have been talked into spending a little bit more.
I would mention, for example, wanting the cake to be colorful, and they would gladly
help me spend my money to make that happen as beautifully as possible.
What I experienced in Germany was...well...definitely not that.
First of all the concept of cake tastings seemed to be completely non-existent.
We were told that we could buy a slice of cake, whatever kind they happened to have
in the bakery that day and then imagine what it would be like in different flavors, which
was a little disappointing, but still okay.
But then, whereas in the U.S. I mentioned the up-sell, in Germany I was introduced to
a concept that, until then, had been wholly foreign and unknown to me: the down-sell.
I had imagined myself telling my wedding cake dreams to the salespeople and having them
help me create all that I could envision and more, but in Germany, I was barely able to
get out the first bit of information, that I wanted multiple tiers, when I was asked
how many guests we'd be having at the wedding.
When the salespeople found out that we were going to be having a small wedding, it was like:
oh, well then, I mean, you don't really need multiple tiers on your cake, just one layer will be
more than enough cake for your wedding.
And I was like: yeah no, I know that, but I want multiple tiers on my cake.
No, no, no, no.
You don't need multiple tiers.
But I want it.
No, you really don't need it.
But I really want multiple tiers for the wedding cake. Please!
In the end it really honestly felt like Stefan and I were barely, just barely able to convince
them to sell us a cake with three tiers, my minimum tier amount, and it just went on like that.
We said we wanted three different flavors -- one on each tier -- they tried to talk us
out of it because it would cost more!
We said we wanted it to be colorful, they tried to talk us into something cheaper and
less colorful.
I said I wanted buttercream frosting instead of fondant.
They flat out said no.
There was not a single bakery that I went to that said they would make the cake with
buttercream instead of fondant on the outside for me. They just refused it.
It just felt like, even once I got them to agree to the tiers and the flavor and the
color, I couldn't seem to get anyone to go all out like the cake decorations that
I've seen online and in wedding magazines in the U.S. Or, okay, if not all out then
even just a medium amount out.
It seemed like they were only willing to go just a tiny little bit out.
Even though I was willing to pay for it.
It was just such a different experience from anything that I was expecting.
Very practical.
And I had never experienced that before, that I was like I have some money here and I would
like to spend that money with you, and the salespeople were like: eeehhhh, but do you really?
And I don't know if it's because we were having a small wedding and so they didn't
think it was worth it for us to spend more money on a wedding cake.
But then, you know, that really wasn't their call to make.
It was for me and Stefan to decide if having this wedding cake of our dreams was worth
it to us.
We were the ones who had decided to cut back on other things because we wanted to have
a really cool cake.
And that was our decision to make, not the salespeople.
In the end, the cake cost way less than my soft maximum limit, and it did end up tasting
super delicious.
We got our three layers and our three different flavors and they were so good.
I don't know if I'd ever had better tasting wedding cake.
Although I might be a little bit biased. But it was definitely delicious.
And it was definitely a pretty cake, but it was not the wedding cake of my dreams and
then some.
We went to several different bakeries and talked with several different people, but
we just couldn't seem to convince anyone to accept our money and make us a wedding
cake of our dreams and then some. We just couldn't make it happen.
So my question for you is: What is your take on this?
Which kind of cake shopping experience would you prefer?
And what is your dream cake?
Not necessarily for a wedding or anything like that; just if you could have any cake
in the world, what kind of cake would you want to have?
Please let me know in the comments below.
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I want wedding cake. Like munch, munch, munch, munch, munch. Wedding cake.
I think wedding cake is really the best cake I've ever had.
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