ASo I don't know how many weeks before an event I should schedule for. Like what's a reasonable time before a wedding? 6 weeks? Does it depend on the cake? What about birthday parties or baptisms etc. What's your policy on this?

how much tine before the event for what? what are you scheduling? you mean how much time to set aside to do the cake -- 6 weeks? i think i'm missing something

AYes, sorry I have no idea how to word it. Yes how much time to set aside to do the cake. I imagine it would be hell to take on a wedding cake 2 weeks before the event for example. But maybe a simple.birthday cake would be ok in that time?

I rarely need more than a couple of days to prep anything for a wedding cake, they're not as difficult as people make it out to be. The only time I'd need more than a few days would be if they needed a ton of gumpaste flowers that needed to dry. For a single cake you really could do a shopping list, shop for ingredients and bake the cake in the same day if you really had to.

Having said that, I wouldn't take a last-minute order for a wedding cake unless there was a really good reason. If you wait that long to get a cake I want to know why, and if it's because your baker "fell through" I want to know why that happened. If it's a friend who was going to do it and they backed out that's one thing, and that would be payment in full in cash before I started working on it. If they had a baker booked and they're changing bakers for some reason forget it, it's likely that they were "fired" by their baker, or they were so picky they don't mind changing vendors the week before their wedding. That isn't a normal thing to do.

AWedding cakes typically are booked 6 - 12 months in advance. Party cakes 2 - 4 weeks in my experience. If that's what you're asking.

I had one lady book her cake over 2 years in advance (still a year away!) and another bride was 3 weeks to her wedding and called.  In terms of prep, it depends on the design.  I have a full month calendar on the wall with all the cakes (and other events which may get in the way) to help plan.  I'd rather be prepared early if I can...shopping, ordering specialist tools, ordering boards etc...it all takes time and missing one can throw a major spanner in the works.