When it comes to herpes antibodies, does your body start making them at time of exposure/infection, or does it start to make them once symptoms appear?

Herpes antibodies certainly occur when a true an episode of herpes virus occurs with creation of typical ulcers (mouth, rectal, genital), which may occur by stress mediated herpes production and release into the bloodstream. Exposure usually permits replication of virus, but may not cause symptoms until stressful stimuli occur much later, since the virus is intra-cellular initially.