What is this "Cake Insurance" Thing?

Thanks to a few shows on TV, brides are asking about getting “cake insurance”. Evidently, the way it’s depicted on TV, a bride pays for “cake insurance” and if something happens to her wedding cake (car wreck while enroute, drunken best man falling into the table, etc.), the baker magically appears with a duplicate cake to save the reception from total ruin!! Wow! What a concept.

I’m in conversation with hundreds of cake designers across the country every single day via a cake decorators’ website, and so far, no one on this site has ever heard of “cake insurance” other than seeing it on TV.

Let’s not confuse “cake insurance” with “wedding day insurance” …. two totally separate things. Wedding Day Insurance covers expenses for the bride and groom if the photographer or caterer doesn’t show up, or if the wedding has to be canceled or postponed due to military deployment or illness or death (not due to change of heart!) and deposit money for venues, etal are reimbursed to the couple.

Cake Insurance, according to what we see on TV, guarantees the bride a fully decorated wedding cake within (dare we say?) “minutes” of the original cake being demolished! (A pretty awesome feat in itself when you consider it takes days to make a wedding cake.)

So let’s ask the question: what exactly did the bride pay for?

A friend of mine contacted one of these TV shows to find out what this was all about and got this explanation: the bakery bakes the same size and flavor cakes and keeps them on hand in the event of a disaster, like a collapsed table or a drunken uncle that falls into the cake. Then if/when they get the call, they can assemble a replacement cake of the same size and flavor with minimal to no decorations, and a new cake is whisked into place within the hour.

So the bride paid, not for “insurance”, but paid for a 2nd wedding cake to be made.

If the wedding goes off without a hitch (as 99.9% of them do), then the baker has the extra money collected for “cake insurance” AND a spare cake that can be sold later.

(Hmmmmm ….. let me think about this …. Could this be a great secondary income for me? Nah……I don’t think so!)

But brides …. Don’t fall into the “latest trend trap” and think you HAVE to have this. Think about all of the weddings you’ve been to, and that your mother has been to, and your grandmother has been to. How many of THEM had a cake demolished? I come from a large family and with all the weddings we've been to in our lifetime, none of us have ever seen a cake disaster that would justify "cake insurance".

It must be something that happens with regularity ONLY on “unscripted” (?) reality shows!


Debi Brim can be reached via email at info@cateritsimple.com

Our websites:
www.cateritsimple.com
www.bannascookies.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55969028@N00/
.