i am doing a lot of the baking for a bar mitzva event for the following weekend, and the party planner has ordered a lot of things from me-example:250 detailed cookies, many cupcakes,cake pops, macarons and more. i asked her today if she can confirm with me how she wants the decorating on the cookies done, and she went on and on about how shes not comfortable with the fact that i am baking in advance (ADVANCE?!) and freezing and how it wont be fresh enough. many people she orders from do it in a day or two. she knows i only work a few hours in the morning as im a stay at home mom, and i mentioned to her a few times i need an order in advance so i can get working on it.i only started baking one week ago, and i want the decorating to be finished by next wednesday so that thursday i can pack it up and she can pick it up thursday evening or friday morning for the bar mitzva that weekend. am i wrong for baking in advance? i always freeze for a week and noone has ever complained and in fact everyone loves the taste. so FRUSTRATED!! what do i tell her??

UGH!!! She seems impossible! If you explain to her that freezing properly will keep in the freshness and she STILL doesn't get it- tell her you'd be happy to start them the Thursday before provided that she finds and pays for a nanny for you for those 2 days and clears her schedule COMPLETELY to help you get them all done... After all, she's had PLENTY of time to plan this right?!?! What doesn't she understand about needing to start things early when asked to do so many tasks? Doesn't she get plently of things done on her end in advance when planning a party! Best of luck!

Tell her that no decorater/baker in their right mind can and will start a project that large the day before..If she doesn't like it...Challenge her to find someone who will.Some people are just plain stupid....Assure her it will be fresh...

How many ovens does she think you have?

I don't think she is thinking that request through at all! I assume she never buys frozen products in the grocery store!?

That planner must watch cake shows like the Ultimate Cake Off where an entire cake - over 5' tall is finished in 9 hours. Hah too bad they don't show the baking process too.

You should have had the details before giving a quote.
And I'm sorry, an amount that you are talking about does NOT happen in a day or two...unless it's a commercial kitchen with employees. I get so pissed when I hear that someone wants something 'fresh' meaning they want it baked the same day they get it. Everything I serve is fresh. And the custom bakery I worked for used to bake everything on a Tuesday for deliveries on Fri and Saturday. I challenge anyone who claims to do all their baking (and decorating) in one day. Unless it's just one order, then they are full of it. Tell her you need the details NOW. It's not up to the party planner when you bake, you need that info so YOU can plan your schedule so as to get it to her stupid party on time. I'd even be so brazen as to go directly to the client if she doesn't give you the information.

Just tell her you need to finalize the design - PERIOD. Some designs are more time consuming than others and you need to know how to plan. If it were me, I'd just tell her "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, everything will be FINE. Now, can you please answer my questions?"

if it's information you volunteered about baking and freezing..don't volunteer that again.

other than that, the planner is being riduculous. imho

I would tell her that everything is going to be fresh, and that it will be CORRECT if you get going on it now. If she gives attitude at all I'd simply let her know if she goes into almost any bakery around they only bake fresh if its a simple cake, AND if she thinks things picked up in grocery stores of any kind are fresh they aren't...99% of the time they have been frozen. Things like this are why I HATE cake decorating shows (unless its Challenge, because they ususally show them pulling completely cooled cakes from coolers/fridge/etc), it gives a false impression on the speed of work & quality.

Just tell to to bake a small box cake today, pull it out of the oven and smear some frosting on it

Tell her to have a good hard look and see what is going to happen. She can bake two cakes, smear one with frosting right out of the oven, for the other wait 1 hr and try it again on the second one. NEITHER will hold the frosting. Cakes take time to cool and firm up. Two things will happen, forsting will melt AND the cake will crumble. Even if you are using fondant, the fondant will melt, it's also made of sugar