So, two weeks from today is my brother's wedding vow renewal. What I was wondering was when would be best to start the baking. What kind of schedule does everyone generally follow?

AOn a cake show last week, Brownwen Weber said you've got 72 hours to start and complete a wedding cake. You can extend your time by baking and freezing layers ahead, and making all your decorations ahead especially if they need to harden.

From my "research" of all of CC when doing a wedding cake, I baked Wednesday, stacked and iced Wednesday night and Thursday, applied fondant Thursday night, then decorated on Friday. Saturday am was finishing, putting on flowers etc.

Well the cake has to be delivered to the venue the day before the wedding as I am also in the wedding party.

You can go ahead and start baking now.  Freeze the layers.  You can also make your buttercream now too and freeze it as well.  Then the day before the wedding, get everything as assembled as you can, then stack it the morning of the wedding.

We have no option but to deliver it the day before as we're having new windows put in the house that day and don't want to risk the cake, I assume the cake will be kept in the hotel kitchen/refrigerator, I will assemble it before delivery.

No I appreciate the advice :) Thank you! Purely because of the fact that i'm in the wedding and the local council chose the day before to install new windows etc, put a spanner in my original plans lol.

I would contact the venue ASAP and find out exactly what the plan is for the cake from the time you deliver it to the time of the wedding.  Some venues will not allow outside food to be stored in their kitchen.  Understand your situation, but having to leave the cake a day ahead where it could be moved, bumped, taken out of the fridge etc etc without me knowing would make me VERY nervous!

I agree you can bake & make buttercream and freeze ahead of time.  

I asked at a meeting on friday when it could be delivered and they had said it would be fine to be delivered the day before

AFind out if they want to keep and freeze the top cake. Then you have to keep it fresh and not freeze it before..... with my wedding cakes I bake, fill and bc it two weeks before, except the top one, that is baked two days before.

I once delivered a 4 tier wedding cake to a hotel, 5 hours drive from my bakery. The hotel manager had assured me and the bride that it would be fine there until the wedding the next day. We left it in a spare banqueting room that was cool and would have no sunshine, and that also happened to be full of folded tables and a load of stacked chairs. 

So the next day they set up the wedding. Someone decided not to move the cake and tried to get a folded table from behind it (???!!!). Needless to say the top tier was stabbed with a table leg...just saying...I don't want to scare you, but you need to find out exactly where it will be stored. (The hotel fixed it by the way, by putting yellow tulips on top taken from the table centerpieces...bride was not happy but agreed to it, as it was the only reasonable solution given the circumstances)

In answer to your original question, if delivery is Friday, bake Tues, fill Weds morning, crumbcoat Weds evening, ice, decorate and box up Thursday ;)

ETA: yes, bake now if you prefer, freeze, remove from freezer to room temp on Tuesday night, fill Weds morning etc etc

Yikes, that's not good. Before I leave it on Friday i'll ask about that! And this week is dedicated to making placecards for the tables, so yeah, busy busy, all baking will be done next week. Thank you!