Drama Behind The Scenes: What!? The cake is here already?

Welcome to the first installment of Drama Behind The Scenes! 

Recently I was hired as a Day-of Coordinator (DOC) for a wedding.  Everything was going rather smoothly, meeting with the vendors, reviewing the final plans for the day, and ensuring all the timelines were correct. 

Well, the vendors and I all SEEMED to be on the same page, I even made a follow up call the day before the event, to ensure that all the scheduled delivery times of the flowers and cake were confirmed.  So, why on the wedding day does my cake arrive at 9:00 AM instead of 3:00 PM as scheduled and confirmed?

Upon discussing this with the bakery, they informed me that they had overbooked their deliveries for the day, and had the delivery the cake early to stay on schedule.  This is a problem, for one, the cake table is not yet setup and decorated and two, the cake will now need to be refrigerated because of the filling and the early delivery, and three, the cake is not fully assembled.

Now, you may wonder where is the DRAMA in this....let me reiterate, the CAKE STILL NEEDS TO BE ASSEMBLED and the hotel will not set up and assemble the cake either. Fortunately, we have experience with assembling and decorating wedding cakes, so needless to say, the CMS staff was able to get the cake set up and assembled before the reception.

A Word of Wisdom:  Please check with your event planner before thanking all your vendors about the beautiful job that they did to on your wedding day.  Things may not have gone as smooth as you think.  Also, quite often you are charged a delivery and set up fee----you may be entitled to refund, if they in fact did not do the set up!