how many brides do you accept for one particular day? I am just branching out into weddings and I have two brides that want to book on July 30th. I'm also a one woman show so I take that into account. For other one person cake shops-how many brides will you take on for a particular day?
It depends on a number of things like 1) how fast are you at decorating, 2) can you coordinate delivery times, 3) how much space do you have, 4) the size of their weddings. For instance if I have a 7 tier cake, I could do 3 small weddings that have smaller cakes, but then my time is limited because I'm still working another full time job.
I don't take more than 2, and that will depend on the amount of time I need for each cake. There a easy cakes, i can have decorated in 1 hr, some others take forever to have them ready. And Organization is another thing I always consider when I am booking 2 wedding cakes on the same day. Can you have everything organized? can you premade most of decoration ahead of time? what time do you need to set up cakes at location? etc
I don't base it on number of cakes I base it off of servings, as wedding cakes can range from 50 to 500.
Personally I do a total of 400-500 servings. I am a one woman show and take care of my 25 month old and 9 month old full time. So i do my cakes with the help of my BF, his parents, and a sleepless night once a week.
I'm exactly where Leahs is. (except I haven't been in business as long, etc...)
Last couple of years I took up to 5-6 per weekend. I've now limited it to 3, 1 Friday, 2 Saturday. There are a few exceptions, but most weekends I'm being pretty firm.
Its not that I can't do more, for me, its travel time. Every venue I deliver to is 25 minutes to 1 hour ONE WAY, and I'm right in between 2 larger cities, so often I have to deliver to both cities in one day. So, I can only coordinate delivery to so many places without the help of the Starship Enterprise....beam me up, Scotty...
I can do one Friday and Sunday and up to three on Saturday if I can coordinate delivery times. That's doing this full-time from home, though, so I do a lot of prep work Tuesday and Wednesday, then I bake on Thursday. For Friday cake I"d bake on Wednesday.
Yes, as others have said, don't figure on how many brides or cakes but take into consideration the sizes of each order along with when and where it is to be delivered.
You cannot do a 2 tiered/50 serving cake to be delivered at 10 a.m. on the west side of town, then have a 4 tier/300 serving one on the north east side of town for 10:30; then one 3 tier/150 servings at 11 southwest of town by 20miles! Through in 2 b'day and a graduation cake to be picked up at noon and you will be out of your mind 
I once did 5 wedding cakes in one weekend and it almost killed me.
Mine depended on what else was on the calendar.
- If I had a wedding/catering for 300, and location was just 5 minutes or as much as 2 hours away, odds are good that's the only thing I'll book that day.
- if I had no caterings, I could do 3 to 5 cakes, depending on where they needed delivery (all clustered in downtown hotels ... Good! Very good!) and what size they were.
- If I had a catering for only 100 that was within minutes of the shop ... then I could do a wedding cake or two if THEY were also in close proximity or at a completely different delivery time.
- If the catering for 100 was 1.5 hours away ..... then nothing else was booked that day.
Pertaining to the preparation of the food and cakes ... I was a one-woman show. My crew showed up in time to load the van and head to the venue for caterings. Cake-only deliveries, I did myself (no crew needed).
I just had too many factors to have any hard and fast rules.
you guys are rock stars. Thank you for the replies-I think I'll book both for that day since they're both modest three tiers
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