Hello all- will be delivering my first wedding cake with set up coming up in a couple weeks and looking for a little guidance. It will have fresh flowers to be arranged on cake at venue. How much time do you allot to set up like this. Also- for those that deliver to multiple venues- what is the average timeframe reception sites give to bakeries for set up- ie- 1 hr before reception, etc.

You need to check with the individual venues, they all have different timeframes. Some of them around here do multiple events in one day, so there's a really short delivery window (1 hour before) and others want the cake there 4 hours before. I deliver 1 1/2 to 2 hours before the start of the reception, generally.

My contract states that I reserve the right to deliver 2 - 6 hours prior to the start of the reception. I coordinate with the venue, but I'm generally there 2-4 hours in advance of the start time.

If it's a cake that is just being basically dropped off, I usually plan to deliver and be gone 1 hour before the event, so people are not arriving while I'm setting up.

If there are flowers to put on, I give myself an extra 30-60 minutes for that, depending on how many flowers are involved.

So for a 3:00 wedding, regular drop off and be gone: I deliver between 1:30 and 2:00. If flowers, I'd deliver between 12:30 and 1:00 so I'm still gone by 2:00...