I have a customer who booked a cake for this weekend back in April. Its a pretty large order, 5 seperate cakes to spell out the childs name and two dozen cookies, each with a different design.
So I have kept my other bookings to a minimum, I just checked and I passed up a total of 5 other orders I could have taken.
The customer calls today needing to reschedule the cake for next weekend, instead of this weekend.
I have a policy that says I will reschedule delivery times within 48 hrs but not delivery dates.
So what do I do, should I charge a fee to make up for the orders I could have taken?
She has already paid in full for the cookies and 50% for the cake, and I only have 2 orders for next weekend so I can do the cake then but its just the fact that I could have booked cakes for this weekend, but did'nt because of this order.
I don't know what to do, any advice is greatly appreciated.

I think if you're going to feel really annoyed about this later then you should charge a fee.

My personal advice, what I would do, is let it slide, and take it as a lesson learned. Change your policy so it's more clear and black and white - not that it's not now - but, if this does happen again, with the same person or someone else, atleast you will have something in writing you could easily refer to when informing about the fee once it's incurred, if you get my drift.

The fact that it's such a big order puts it in a risky situation in my opinion if you do decide to charge a fee. You will probably get a lot of publicity because of the huge order, doing both cakes and cookies. I wouldn't risk it turning even slightly negative in any way by charging a fee that's not REALLY, or wasn't really, extremely explicit. People are finicky about things like this, IMO. While she might understand, she might not - I wouldn't take the chance!

It sounds like a really cool cake (or, many cakes). Make sure to take/post pics!! Goodluck!

I'm glad you posted this experience. I've had a couple of brides reschedule (and usually much to my relief as their original weekend was overbooked anyway!), but I never considered a situation like this, where I may have turned down biz based on their original committment.

I'll be working on the revised wording to cover this now. Thanks!!

I just talked to her and told her I can reschedule (without a fee).
However she needs to talk to all the other vendors (yes she has "vendors " for a 3 yr olds party)to see if she can reschedule them as well.
I need to start baking, in fact I've already baked the cookies, so I need to know now if she is indeed rescheduling.
I will call her tomorrow at 8am to finalize the rescheduling but if she hasnât worked it all out by then what do I do?
I can't bake the cake on the chance that she might need them, and I can't risk not baking them incase she does need them.
And if I do bake them and she doesnât need them then I'm out 5 cakes??
I never ran into this problem before.
Can I freeze the already baked cookies until next weekend? And what about the cakes can I go ahead and bake them and freeze, and will they be fresh next week?

After reading the Wedding cake for 1 thread this is what I added to my contract...

In the event your wedding is rescheduled, and Cakes by Cathy is no longer available for the new date, all funds (minus the 50% deposit) will be refunded provided Cakes by Cathy is notified no later than three weeks prior to the wedding date. If Cakes by Cathy is available for the new date, your balance will be applied towards the new date. Another 50% non-refundable deposit will be required. This is to compensate me for lost revenue.

You turned down other orders and missed out on the opportunity to make money.

i've even frozen decorated cakes...and gave them to them later.