Our warehouse team starts loading vans before 8am and keeps working until the last van is unloaded. Here's what a typical day looks like.
Our warehouse team starts loading vans before 8am and keeps working until the last van is unloaded. Here's what a typical day looks like.
With the wedding season in full swing, our working days grow longer and busier. For our warehouse staff it is peak season, with crockery hire and cutlery hire moving in and out of the warehouse to weddings and functions across the region.
The day's preparation begins before anyone officially clocks in. Overnight, our order management system has finalised delivery and collection routes, grouping orders by geography to minimise drive time. The logistics manager reviews these before anyone arrives to catch anything that needs adjusting: a late-arriving order, a customer rescheduling, a change to access arrangements at a venue.
Any changes are cascaded to drivers and warehouse staff before loading begins. Getting this right at the start saves significant time on the road later in the day.
There is no standing around at the start of the day. Vans need to be loaded and on the road. The logistics manager will have worked out which orders go on which van, loading stock for the first stops closest to the van doors.
Drivers and warehouse staff check off each order to confirm everything is loaded correctly and nothing gets left behind. Getting drivers on the road quickly matters, and there is no room for delays at this point in the day.
Orders with fragile items, glassware in particular, are packed with care. Each glass goes back into its specific compartment in the crate. Stacking order inside the van matters too: heavy items go in first and at the bottom, lighter items on top, with nothing loose that can shift during braking.
With vans on the road, it is time to go through orders returned from the previous day. Warehouse staff check that everything has come back as it should and prepare crockery and cutlery for washing. We ask customers to scrape food debris from plates and pour liquids out of glasses before returning them, which makes a real difference to how quickly this process goes.
Missing items are noted at this stage. Where something is absent, the office team contacts the customer to arrange return or raise a charge. Catching this early in the day means customers can still find items before they are disposed of.
Linen returned wet or soiled goes into a separate wash queue. Items with wax, glue or marker ink are assessed for whether they can be recovered. Linen that cannot be cleaned is written off and charged for at replacement cost.
With orders constantly coming in, picking needs to stay on top of the workload. Orders are picked in delivery order, and the list grows as new orders arrive.
Picking is more than pulling items from shelves. Electrical items are tested to confirm they work, and gas appliances are checked thoroughly for leaks. Our staff take real pride in checking that all catering equipment and furniture meets the standard before it goes out.
Each order is packed against the picking list before being sealed and labelled. For large orders, a 200-person wedding with crockery, cutlery, glassware and linen, this process takes 20 to 30 minutes per order. Getting it right now prevents a problem at the venue.
Tablecloths and napkins are folded to a standard and packed together, not mixed in with crockery. Mixing linen in with plates means linens arrive creased and crockery risks being chipped.
With a high volume of orders, keeping track of stock levels is critical. We carry large quantities of event hire, exhibition furniture and catering equipment but availability can tighten for last-minute orders. Our online system prompts customers placing orders within seven days to make contact so we can confirm stock and driver availability before confirming the order.
The office team handles these confirmations during this part of the day. It is also the time when customers with questions or changes to existing orders are dealt with. Changes to collection addresses, requests for additional items and timing queries all come in through the afternoon.
As the working day draws to a close, drivers return with collected stock. Warehouse staff unload the vans so they can be readied for the next day. Unloading is done with the same care as loading: making sure everything collected has been accounted for and is ready to be checked properly the following morning.
For vans returning late, some collection events do not finish until the early evening, stock goes into a holding area and is checked first thing the next morning. Nothing is restocked or allocated to a new order until it has passed through the returns check.
The last job of the day is confirming the next day's delivery schedule and flagging anything that needs preparation overnight. If a particularly complex order is going out the following morning, the logistics manager may prepare paperwork and allocate van space the night before.
Gas appliances that have been checked and cleared go back onto their designated shelving. Electrical equipment with a failed PAT test is tagged and set aside for repair, it does not go back into the active stock area until it has been tested and passed again.
If you have questions about how we work, the live chat facility in the bottom corner of the screen is staffed and ready to help.
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