Since it's just me who does the delivering of my cakes and I'm starting to get a lot more business, I'm running into an issue that is a first for me, which is delivery time conflicts. I have 2 Saturdays in the next coming months where I have 2 wedding cakes for each day and the delivery times that the brides need them for are very close, like within 1/2 hour to 1 hour of each other. I don't trust delivering my cakes to be done by anyone else but me, so hiring someone else (even trusting hubby) isn't an option. What's the best way to handle this type of situation? Do I explain that I'm already delivering another cake at that time and we need to figure out a way to either deliver it earlier or later?

My contract says that I reserve to deliver the cake from 2 to 6 hours prior to the start of the reception. I and only I schedule the delivery of the cake, after consultation with the venue. A bride would never be allowed to tell me when to deliver, or tell me much of anything else about my biz.

Thank you Leah! This helps a lot and gives me a better idea of how I need to approach things. I am going to add a delivery clause in my contract now and love the 2-6 hour timeframe. Thanks for the awesome advice, as always!

As usual, I agree with leah.

I had one bride (she was one of my three 7-7-07 brides) who tried that. I was doing cake and catering for these events so had MUCH more to coordinate.

We were scheduled to deliver at 6:00 for a 7:00 reception. Friend of bride calls and asks if we can deliver at 2:00. I said, "Uh.....NO!!!!" She said, "We're trying to get all of the vendors to show up at the same time and the florist and the DJ can be there at 2:00."

I said, "But THEY aren't dealing with perishable food. Do you REALLY want the food already cooked and delivered FIVE HOURS before people eat it? I wont' even have your food cooked by 2! You'll need to have someone there at 6:00 to unlock the door for us so we can serve at 7:00."

She said, "Oh ... we pushed it back to 7:30!" (oh now THAT'S a tid bit of news I needed to know!)

I said, "Then you'll have to have someone there at 6:30 to unlock the door."

She said, "The wedding starts at 6:00. Everyone will be at the church."

I said, 'You'll have to assign someone to unlock the door at 6:30 so we can set-up unless you want the food served from the parking lot."

Had another day where I had 3 weddign cakes. 2 of them wanted a 5:00 delivery and they were over an hour apart. LIke leah said, I told them what time I needed to deliver and they needed to make sure the room was ready when I got there.

They're not ordering a pizza to be delivered at lunch.

I always tell my brides that I will call the venue to schedule delivery the week of the wedding. I ask the brides when their reception is scheduled to start, and that's it. I tell them that at that point they are too busy trying NOT to run off to Vegas, so I'll take cake of scheduling delivery. Never had a problem.