Opinions Please!

My wedding was so wonderful and so amazing in so many ways.

That's why I feel completely guilty over the fact that my mind keeps obsessing about the one little detail that let J and me down: our wedding cake.

As some of you may recall, we chose our cake baker, Michele Coulon, because her family used to own a restaurant  that my husband (I love saying that!) and his family frequented while he was growing up. We had to get special permission from our venue to allow us to bring in an outside baker, and even pay a little extra, but it was worth it because the decision meant so much to J and his family. Plus, Michele's a well-known, respected San Deigo cake designer, renown for making cakes that taste as good as they look.

We met with Michelle twice to discuss the design of the cake, the final time being just a few weeks before the big day.  We gave her a picture to serve as a guideline for the design. We told her she didn't have to copy it, but we'd like her to base her design on it.  We also agreed that the colors would alternate pink and gold with each layer.

However, when we walked into our reception hall the day of the wedding, we were both quite stunned about the final product. Of course, during the wedding, we didn't have time to get worked up. We had so many other wonderful things to focus on! But it was one of the first items we discussed the following afternoon as we slowly descended from our wedding high.

Now, I'm not an expert, but I've watched enough cake baking shows on television to know what good  piping is supposed to look like. The piping on our cake looked amateurish, uneven and hurried. The pattern of the design Michele chose lacked the symmetry, geometry, and flow of the cake in the photo we had given her to imitate.  And finally, the colors were not what we had agreed upon. There was no gold to be found and somehow, one layer had mysteriously become black.

I honestly have no idea what went wrong.

Michele's portfolio is full of cakes that resemble pristine works of art. The only work of art this cake represented was a first grader's finger painting project. (Okay, maybe that's a little harsh.)

Now, the one positive thing I will say is that the cake tasted amazing (or so I heard as I wasn't actually able to squeeze anything else into my dress by that time in the evening). Guests continually approached us in the weeks following the event to tell us how delicious our cake was. However, not one person complimented us on its appearance, a rare occurrence for Michele's cakes I'm sure.

We've spoken with Michele and she knows about our disappointment.  She says she feels terrible that we were unsatisfied and that she apparently misinterpreted our request. She said to let her know if we wanted financial compensation.

I'm not sure what I want. We were just truly disappointed and baffled. The cake was the one thing we weren't worried about going into the event and it turned out to be the only part of the day with which we weren't thrilled.

What do you think? Should I complain further? Write a negative review on Yelp? Ask for my money back? Suck it up?

Our wedding cake was one of the things I was most looking forward to. Now I cringe every time I see it in our photos. Of course, at the end of the day, I'm married to a wonderful man and I know that's the most important thing. I guess you could say I want to have my cake and eat it too.

The cake we wanted

The cake we got.