Wedding Forum - Worried about wedding cake...

I'm really concerned about the person who I have chosen to do my wedding cake.
I found them through ukbride as they replied with a quote. They are charging £150 for a 2 tier cake.
Up until I paid the deposit they were very quick to respond, even chased me when I didn't get back to them once. But it seems to be now I have paid the deposit I am constantly chasing them and not getting anywhere. Before I paid the deposit they said I can do a cake tasting, when I enquired when I could to this she said that it's only for people who are spending over £300, as mine is a low amount all communication will just be through email. She said she would be at a local wedding fair but then when I checked with her nearer the time she said she would be at the excel one, she did send me tickets but it was awkward for me to get to that day. I've offered to come to her as I think she does it from home but never got anywhere with that.

She said she would do my cake sketch in October/November. I emailed in November to see if she needed any info off me as I hadn't heard anything. Didn't get a reply after a couple of weeks so I texted her, she said she forgot to reply back to the email, she said she would look in my file and then create a sketch - that was a month ago and I haven't heard back since.
During the summer when I emailed with a query it took 3 emails over a number of weeks to get a response, said she was busy which I understand - but I am still a customer and I should get a response without having to keep chasing her.

Now I know it's Christmas and she is bound to be busy so was going to leave it until January before enquiring again. But I don't see why she should be months behind doing something that she said she would do and I shouldn't be constantly doing the chasing.

Really regret going with her. If I hadn't paid the £50 deposit I would certainly be going somewhere else.

You are being very understanding. It is approaching Christmas so yeah she may very well be busy, but that's no excuse. She should have contacted you ages ago and has had plenty of time! If she doesn't buck her ideas up I would be tempted to just forget the £50 deposit and go elsewhere. Maybe try and haggle another cake maker down so in the end the loss of the £50 doesn't matter x

Just posted the name on your wall. Is it the same one?

I got through to her on December 14th. She apologised and said her workload was starting to calm down by the end of that week and would definitly get something sent over to me.......well that was 3 weeks ago and still not a thing! I know she is back working as have had normal advertising emails from her and seen has been updating the fbook page.
I really don't want to have to be the one to chase and contact again, but how long do i leave it?

If she originally promised you a sketch in October/November time I think you are entitled to chase again after 3 weeks. I chased someone again the other day and it turned out an email from 19th December hadn't got to me.

Explain to her that given she is not replying and not able to respond and send sketches when promised you are now concerned that she don't turn up on the day. You appreciate that £150 isn't a huge amount of money for a wedding cake but it is still a substansyail amount if cash. Tell her if she cannot provide you a sketch within 7 days then you expect her to return your deposit as clearly she is not able to fulfil the basic communications of a supplier and so you can't be confident she will fulfill your order on the day. Also if she never gave you a contract stating cake tasting are only for orders over £300.00 then ask how are you supposed to decide which flavour you want? She should be offering these to you. Xx

I contacted her again yesterday and now have finally got my sketch.
She said she was busy with run up to Christmas then took a break over the festive season, fair enough.

The sketch looks like it was done in about 2 mins so really don't know what took so long. I have out the photo in my photos on here. It's a bit difficult to tell from a sketch but it looks how I want it. I have two other photos in my album, I want the design of the plain Ivory cake but with the colouring of the cake with blue in it.