This was my first wedding cake. I learned a lot about all types of cakes with this one. One thing I learned was sometimes the individual tiers can be too heavy for a single cardboard; lifting it to place it on the bottom layer caused the sides to bulge slightly. I thought it was horrific but no one looked there. They saw the cake as a whole instead of noticing that fault, but I definately learned that lesson! The great thing was that this was a HUGH wedding it totally launched my wedding business. Cake size: 16,14,12,8. The bottom tier was 4-layers and the others were 3. The blue "sparklers" are gumpaste covered 20-guage florists wire.