Birthday cake conundrum

[MrKK]

Not sure if this needs its own thread, but I need help with an ethical dilemma / difference of opinion with the missus.

My 40th is next month. I hate hosting parties so I've booked dinner for 20 family and friends at a restaurant with a private room and a banquet menu. I'll be footing the whole bill for food and drinks, and the menu includes a dessert.

I hadn't even thought about having a birthday cake until it came up in conversation with my wife today, where I was told it would be rude not to do one. Is that the case that people would expect a cake at a birthday dinner?

From my experience of adult birthday parties the cake is nothing more than a temporary focal point for a quick speech and a round of "hip-hip hooray". People are so full of food and drink by then that the ones who do eat some cake seem to do it out of obligation, and many just pass on it.

I really can't be arsed spending more money on something that guests won't appreciate, and food wastage is a big bugbear of mine. Am I in the wrong here?

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Not sure if this needs its own thread, but I need help with an ethical dilemma / difference of opinion with the missus.

My 40th is next month. I hate hosting parties so I've booked dinner for 20 family and friends at a restaurant with a private room and a banquet menu. I'll be footing the whole bill for food and drinks, and the menu includes a dessert.

I hadn't even thought about having a birthday cake until it came up in conversation with my wife today, where I was told it would be rude not to do one. Is that the case that people would expect a cake at a birthday dinner?

From my experience of adult birthday parties the cake is nothing more than a temporary focal point for a quick speech and a round of "hip-hip hooray". People are so full of food and drink by then that the ones who do eat some cake seem to do it out of obligation, and many just pass on it.

I really can't be arsed spending more money on something that guests won't appreciate, and food wastage is a big bugbear of mine. Am I in the wrong here?

If you've got dessert included don't bother with a cake. I had both at my 30th last year and no one touched the cake, pain in the bum. Same thing happened at my baby shower.

 

[Off The Couch]

As MEB said but if your wife insists on cake then have it instead of dessert.

Check with the restaurant as some will have a platage (similar to corkage) charge

 

[DroopStDanny]

It's times like these you wish you knew someone who is a professional CakeEater

 

[exe ex machina]

Not sure if this needs its own thread, but I need help with an ethical dilemma / difference of opinion with the missus.

My 40th is next month. I hate hosting parties so I've booked dinner for 20 family and friends at a restaurant with a private room and a banquet menu. I'll be footing the whole bill for food and drinks, and the menu includes a dessert.

I hadn't even thought about having a birthday cake until it came up in conversation with my wife today, where I was told it would be rude not to do one. Is that the case that people would expect a cake at a birthday dinner?

From my experience of adult birthday parties the cake is nothing more than a temporary focal point for a quick speech and a round of "hip-hip hooray". People are so full of food and drink by then that the ones who do eat some cake seem to do it out of obligation, and many just pass on it.

I really can't be arsed spending more money on something that guests won't appreciate, and food wastage is a big bugbear of mine. Am I in the wrong here?

Take what your wife says and raise her.....get one of those huge birthday cakes where a topless blonde will jump out of it and then do a strip show.

 

[CakeEater]

Not sure if this needs its own thread, but I need help with an ethical dilemma / difference of opinion with the missus.

My 40th is next month. I hate hosting parties so I've booked dinner for 20 family and friends at a restaurant with a private room and a banquet menu. I'll be footing the whole bill for food and drinks, and the menu includes a dessert.

I hadn't even thought about having a birthday cake until it came up in conversation with my wife today, where I was told it would be rude not to do one. Is that the case that people would expect a cake at a birthday dinner?

From my experience of adult birthday parties the cake is nothing more than a temporary focal point for a quick speech and a round of "hip-hip hooray". People are so full of food and drink by then that the ones who do eat some cake seem to do it out of obligation, and many just pass on it.

I really can't be arsed spending more money on something that guests won't appreciate, and food wastage is a big bugbear of mine. Am I in the wrong here?

In my professional opinion, yes yes you are.

 

[perthblue]

Get a divorce

 

[MrKK]

As MEB said but if your wife insists on cake then have it instead of dessert.

Check with the restaurant as some will have a platage (similar to corkage) charge

Thanks, that's definitely an option. The annoying part is my wife doesn't have a sweet tooth and probably won't eat the dessert or the cake. Also means I'll be the one stuck with leftovers.

 

[Off The Couch]

Thanks, that's definitely an option. The annoying part is my wife doesn't have a sweet tooth and probably won't eat the dessert or the cake. Also means I'll be the one stuck with leftovers.

Just leave it for the kitchen staff or others in the restaurant. That way you’ve no clue if it did or didn’t get wasted

 

[MrKK]

Get a divorce

Seems like an overreaction, but most of the family on the guest list are hers so it would significantly reduce the cost of the night.

 

[Perth gal]

Just have one or the other.

 

[PoppedCorn]

It's your birthday, not hers

No cake

 

[Demosthenes]

Nobody will care.

Get the kitchen staff to stick a sparkler in whichever dessert you order and call it a day.

 

[Gough]

Cheese board and a couple of nice stickies.

 

[raskolnikov]

For my 50th in two weeks (bet you didn't know that NaturalDisaster) my family are buying a cake which will be the dessert.

 

[The Goon]

You can tell your wife from an anonymous person on the internet, no, it’s not rude to skip the cake if you are supplying a desert anyway. In fact it’s both economically and environmentally responsible.

FFS. Your fourty, not fourteen.


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[ioppolo]

Your footing the bill for your own 40th? I must be a stinge because that seems a bit ludicrous to me

 

[perthblue]

Your footing the bill for your own 40th? I must be a stinge because that seems a bit ludicrous to me

Who else is meant to pay?

 

[ioppolo]

Who else is meant to pay?

Other half?

 

[perthblue]

Other half?

I assume with married couples all their money is the same thing anyway

 

[dales.girl38]

Choose one, I recommend the dessert as some restaurants can get grumpy about the lost business and also charge for extra plates etc being cleaned.

 

[MrKK]

I assume with married couples all their money is the same thing anyway

Yes, that is the case with us. Me paying is the same as us paying, as opposed to the guests.

 

[Billy ray]

No cake.
Provide wife some cake* when you get home



* not cake. But get whipped cream

 

[Scotland]

Just bring some candles and stick them in the dessert that's included.

Cake for a 40th at a restaurant seems like overkill to me. I wouldn't consider it rude to go along and find out at the end of the meal there is no cake because I'm not 8.

 

[perthblue]

Just bring some candles and stick them in the dessert that's included.

Cake for a 40th at a restaurant seems like overkill to me. I wouldn't consider it rude to go along and find out at the end of the meal there is no cake because I'm not 8.

But what if theres no fairy bread? definite grounds to assert that the host is a stinky poopface