I have my first wedding cake today. I ordered gumpaste flowers off the internet and they have wires in them. I've never used these before and I know that you aren't suppose to put the wires into the cake. My plan was to attach the fondant leaves at home and put drinking straws into the cake where I want the flowers and then once I get there put the flowers into the straws. Does this sound right? How does everyone else do this? Will the straws hold the flowers in place? Any help would be appreciated.

Straws work great to hold flowers, as long as they aren't too heavy. Take scissors and pliars to trim the straws and bend the wires as needed.

If they are small pieces then straws work great. If the steams are larger wrapped wire then get a posy pick from Micheals, oops I think they call them water picks. Anyway I use both.

I had a wedding last week end and had a topper of gumpaste flowers and a spray coming down the side. I wrapped the topper wires with saran wrap and stuck them in the cake. The spray was in 2 pieces I wrapped each piece I was going to insert into the cake with saran wrap. The flowers were a little heavy so I stuck 2 wooden skewers in the side of the cake to rest the flowers on. With stategically placed leave you could not see any of this. It was the only way I could come up with. My cake was covered in fondant and I think that is what helped the flowers to hold in place.

I use floral water picks because my wired flowers stem are too large and won't support the flowers well enough. They have worked great, but be careful if you are putting them on the side of the cake. If you don't put it in in an angle, they won't hold. Be sure to bring some extra icing to fill in around the pick if you need it when you set it up.
Vicky

If you are doing a cluster of flowers, just make a ball of fondant and stick the flowers into the fondant ball. Or you can tape the wires together with floral tape, trim the end and fold the end over in a hook shape and lay on the cake.

not everyone agrees that you shouldn't put wired flowers into the cake. when I do wired flowers, they are cloth covered wires, which then are also covered ith floral tape. I insert them directly into the cake with no worry whatsoever. I can't see any difference between that an inserting plastic into teh cake to hold the flowers. just my 2 cents

I let them get really, really dry so they won't break easily, then I attached them together with a floral tape.

Um excuse me, but I have read here that floral tape is NOT food safe, but that the plastic is...
Just my 2 cents.

I feel uncomfortable using floral tape in cakes because floral tape is more porous and can absorb germs that you cannot wash off. I didn't know it was unsafe for foods, I'm glad I found out. Thanks.
Vicky

So is just sticking floral wire directly into the cake okay then?

People on CC have reported that after sticking wires into the cake, they have left rust in the cake.

Anyway, the first wedding cake I did, the wires were poked into the cake (covered with floral tape).

I served the cake at the wedding and I have seen most of the people who ate it since and they are still alive.

I only put the flowers on a couple hours before the cake was served.

Now that I am a little more experienced I use the methods described in my previous post. However, if I were to do another cake with the flowers cascading down the tiers, I'm not exactly sure how I would do it. But maybe a combination of wiring the flowers together in sprays and having a rope or ball of fondant to stick them in. But if I couldn't achieve the look I was going for with that method, I would probably stab them into the cake where necessary.

Just a caveat that reading it here doesn't make it so. If you feel more comfortable wrapping them in plastic, go for it. I'm just pointing out that not everyone agrees on this topic. The instructor I had told us just to put the flowers right into the cake (again, the wire os covered with cloth and also with floral tape).

As long as they won't eat the tape..

Yeah,
You never know what a customer would do to be able to sue. They'd think it was their lottery win. I problably would protect myself by using the picks.
Vicky