I have a huge halloween order for Oct. 29. Its for my mothers job and I'm really doing it to practice and I'm not making any money off of it. She only paid for ingrediants.
Anyway, I am making 48 cupcakes, 48 mini cupcakes, a 9x12 cake, as well as some halloween chocolate candy using the candy melts and molds. Everything will be fully decorated so I know its going to be A LOT of work.
If everything has to be ready by wednesday, how early can I start and what should I start first?

I had an order for 40 mini cakes covered in buttercream and rolled fondant. I had 3 helpers and i spent at least 15 hours of hard work. i baked 40 cakes using the jumbo muffin pan from wilton. and then wait until they were cool enough to covered with buttercream then rolled fondant, made the mini ropes and dots in each one. So I really can tell you to start the day before.
Good luck

Im not too "professional" but I keep my CCake sin the fridge fine for 4 days and they come to room temp and taste great, but the minis ( in my opinion ) dont do so well , Id save them to be last baking. Chocoloate decorations could be made now as well as the large CCakes Id say. Then make minis maybe 2 days before or a day if you can and have decorations ready to go. Remember to bring things to room temp before decorating, the cooling of cake may mess up certian decorations when it "sweats". Im not great at this yet either but thats the way Id do it.
Good luck, enjoy
-Sara

start baking NOW and put them well wrapped in the fridge. Then break it up into time chunks.

I bake on Mondays and make any advance decorations (depending on the technical difficulty, I make the gp and fondant deco two weeks or more ahead) Prep boards on Wed and make fondant, make icing, and tint colors on Thurs and prepare and icing bags, decorate on Friday. This way it doesn't feel like a ton of work, and on Fridays I just get to do the fun stuff. Plus I have to work around a day job and 4 children's sporting team/music lessons/etc.

Break it down so you're not so overwhelmed by the time element.

48 cupcakes .... with a 12-cavity pan and assuming you can get 2 pans in your oven at once, that's only 2 baking batches. less than an hour's baking time.

48 mini cupcakes .... those usually come in a 24-cavity pan. Assuming 2 pans in the oven at once, again, it's only 2 baking batches. Less than an hour's baking time.

I would freeze them after baking. Recently posted in another thread, the "going stale" process is halted when a cake if frozen .... it's accelerated when the cake is refrigerated. Cakes this small will thaw in minutes.

Personally, I'd get the little candies done and out of the way first. They'll keep for a really long time and you dont' have to worry about "fresh" or "stale".

Indydebi hit the nail on the head! Follow her advice