Wedding Cake Anything But Sweet Memory For Rocky Mount Woman

Cutting the cake is a wedding reception highlight, but one cake almost did not make it in time.

"I get very angry about it," said Regina Bright.

Bright and her daughter ordered the $258 cake from Rocky Mount's Oakwood Bakery.

A month before the July wedding, the mother and daughter met with bakery owner Tom Stokes and finalized the plans.

"I felt real good about it, very confident that he would do a good job and everything. Then I got disappointed," Bright said.

Bright expected Stokes to arrive at the church about an hour before the wedding. As her daughter walked down the aisle, Stokes and the cake had not arrived.

"I said 'OK, he'll have it set up when we come out.' Then we came out and there's still no cake," Bright said. "I was like, 'Oh, what are we going to do?'"

Bright said Stokes finally showed up with the cake about two hours after the reception started.

"He just said, 'I had another wedding.' That's all he said," according to Bright.

When it was all over, Bright left messages for and sent a certified letter to Stokes asking for an apology and a refund.

"I did not hear from him until after I talked to you," Bright said of her call to Five On Your Side.

The same day Five On Your Side left a message for Stokes, he called Bright and agreed to refund two-thirds of her money, send a letter of apology and make a birthday cake.

Stokes reportedly promised Bright would get the check in two and a half weeks. After more than a month, Stokes has not paid Bright, she said. Stokes said he will not refund the money because of WRAL's story.

"I just like getting what I paid for. I paid for a cake to be delivered, for them to have it at the wedding on time," Bright said.

When Five On Your Side first asked Stokes what caused the problem, he told Five On Your Side to "find a story somewhere else." He claimed he responded to Bright's concerns by letter in July, agreeing to give her whatever would make her happy.

Bright said she never got a letter from Stokes and would not have called Five On Your Side if she had.