Tuxedo Strawberries Pricing and other questions - need reply quickly

I've been asked about doing tuxedo strawberries for a dinner the night before a wedding.  This would be for November 16th.  I've never made them, but I've seen pictures and tutorials and know that they aren't difficult, just time consuming.   She wants about 30 and is saying to bring them the night before.  However, I know that they have a short shelf life.  I have a regular day job so don't have the luxury of doing them the same day.  I would advise her that I would drop them off on the way to work on the morning of the 16th which means I can do them Thursday evening minimizing the time to less than 24 hours.

1.  Do you think this is reasonable?  I have no idea how long it takes to make one.

2.  I don't want to use Wilton candy melts or have to deal with tempering chocolate.  I can get Guittard A'peels.  I've never used them though. Do they melt easily and taste good?

3.  Finally, this is my cousin (who is an event planner) asking me for her daughter's wedding.  I'm already making wedding shaped sugar cookies and have given her a really good discount.  I have no idea what to charge for these and know they can be expensive due to the time involved.  Anyone have any idea what the going price in Toronto is?  Or what is a reasonable price?  I don't want to overcharge but I don't want to undercharge either.  Who knows, this could lead to future requests.

Thanks

Thanks KoryAK.  I quoted a price of $4.25 and she was fine with that.

Now I just have to figure out where I might get long stemmed strawberries. LOL.  I'll probably go to one of the upscale groceries to get better quality berries.  We have a few Whole Foods here now.

Thanks Denise this is very helpful.   Your advice is great!   Luckily I only need to make 30 total, 15 tuxedos and 15 wedding gowns.  I am dropping them off in the morning (I think this is for the out of towner's dinner the night before the wedding) before I head to work.  I'm going to do a trial run this weekend on a few to make sure I know what I'm doing and see how long it takes.  I'd prefer not, but I might be willing to get up really early and do them if they will dry in time.  I figure I might end up doing them at midnight. LOL.

Once you finished them, did you refrigerate them at all?  Did you tell your bride not to refrigerate them?

Is the Merkens wedding chocolate like Guittard A'peels  or did you have to temper it?  I've just discovered that my local store has the milk chocolate and the dark chocolate a'peels but is currently out of stock on the white chocolate ones.  They have the 31% white, 38% milk and 61% semisweet chocolate wafers.  But I think that means I have to temper the chocolate, which I was trying to avoid.  They have paramound crystals as well, but I've never used them, so not totally sure what they do.  I was going to search to see if there were any threads about tempering and such.
 

Thanks everyone.  My supplier has the a'peels in stock in all three flavours (dark, milk and white chocolate) so for this order I'm going to use them.  I will do a trial run this weekend to make sure I know what I'm doing with the tuxedos and to get an idea of how long it takes.

Leah is there any reason that I might need to add the paramount crystals to the a'peels?  I read on my suppliers site that they can be added to candy coatings to make them thinner and creamier, basically the same description they have with the cocoa butter I could buy.
 

Well, I've just done a trial run on a few strawberries to see how the a'peels melted and what the dipping time etc was going to be.

I'm finding that the a'peels seem thicker than I expected.  I thought that after dipping, I could hold the berry up and excess would drip off, but it doesn't. So I think I may try adding some of the paramount crystals on the weekend.  I've still got until the 15th to perfect this.

The other thing I'm finding is that the tops of the berries seem to get in the way and get chocolate on them.  I'll have to be more careful with holding them.

Finally two question for those who have made these -

a)  Do I dip right up to the leaves at the top, or leave some of the berry showing?

b)  For the tuxedos, am I dipping the entire berry in the white chocolate and then doing the dark chocolate lapels?  Does the back of the berry get covered by the dark chocolate as well?  I saw on one tutorial on line that this person just dipped the front of the berry in the white chocolate and then dipped the dark chocolate.

Any and all advise welcome. :)

Thanks

Pam

Thanks KoryAK.  I picked up some paramount crystals tonight, so I'm going to do another test run on the weekend.  I ate a couple of the ones I did do, and they seem a bit thick to me.  I didn't really like having the layer of white chocolate under the regular chocolate, so I'm going to try just doing the front of the tuxedo in white.

After all this, I may think twice before agreeing to do these. LOL.

Okay, I've completed my second test run with some paramount crystals and they did help.  I've got to do the "official" dipping tomorrow evening.

Everyone says to wipe the berries with a damp cloth.  I did that with wet paper towels.  Even doing that, I'm noticing that little flecks of seed show up in the chocolate.  Any hints  not to have this happen?

And the other thing I found was that when dipping the tuxedo berries, after they've been dipped in the white chocolate and it's set, when I go to dip in the milk chocolate, I'm getting some of the white melting into it.  Obviously my white chocolate is still a bit hot.  Any suggestions what the temperature shoud be?