All fondant. 16, 12 and 9 inches. The two biggest pearls were fondant covered styrofoam balls painted with pearl dust. The medium pearls were gumballs and the small pearls were Sixlets. The ribbon came in handy for covering the fondant flaws which happened along the bottom of each tier, and the fact that the top tier was actually sitting on dowel rods about half an inch above the middle tier (it was so heavy the middle tier started to crack when I originally stacked it on top so I had to isert longer rods to support it without any weight being on that middle tier).