Hi everyone, quick question. I am making my colleagues wedding cake and delivering it to the venue. THe reception is at 5 pm and the assistant manager tells me the venue is open to deliveries at 2:00 pm. I will be getting off of nights the morning of the wedding so everything will be done the day before. I was hoping to just get home from work and take the cake straight there, finish it and set it up where it will live for the evening. Or is it better to wait till the evening. I never delivered to a wedding venue so I want to know how much I should bug them for an earlier delivery. I would like the CC opinion...

If I read this right, you're wanting to set the cake up at like 8:00 in the morning?

I wouldn't bug them for a delivery before 2:00.

Perhaps it's a venue that charges the bride by the hour so access at 2:00 is based on the numbers of hours they paid for.

Perhaps they have an event earlier in that particular room and 2:00 is the earliest they can have the room cleaned up and ready. (I ran into that ..... wanted to deliver a cake at 4:00 but had to wait until after 4:30 because they were tearing down a seminar that was in that particular hotel room that morning/afternoon, and the cake table wouldn't be set and ready until after 4:30.)

Perhaps the venue based their costs on the staffing hours and that's all based on the venue being available at 2:00.

Perhaps they don't want vendors running in and out while they are setting up the tables (and perhaps knocking a cake over).

And I seriously doubt they will have the cake table ready early in the morning for a 5:00 wedding.

If you delivered at 4 pm, if that would give you time to finish whatever decorating had to be done once it was set up, that would probably give you enough sleep and would minimize the chance of someone bumping into the cake table while setting up the rest of the tables for the event, and knocking down your lovely creation. I've worked at places where we had events and sometimes we would finish one event, clean up as fast as possible, then get the tables and chairs into place (different setups for different kinds of events) only an hour or two before the event started. There was always a lot of moving around, rolling tables into place, dollying stacks of chairs...lots of room for disaster if the cake would have already been set up in the room.

Thanks for the input, I am going to settle my mind and make the afternoon delivery. THe thing is, I work that night as well so I was hoping for an am delivery, but I certainly wouldn't want anything to happen to it if it is there too long. I won't bug them. THey may have an earlier event to clean up after, never thought of that. Afternoon delivery, settled!