Fondant question-----really long!

I know there might be a lot of threads about this topic but with this site being down constantly it's hard to retrieve any info. I am not complaining, but it's been harder for all of us to get some info when we need it. Typically when we are having problems of some sort.
Anyway, last weekend i had a quinceanera cake order. Two tiers, 10" and 8", with a doll cake on top covered in fondant. Ok, so a week before the date I baked half of the cakes (I needed 2 of each for double layers). I used some springform pans that typically bake my cakes beautifully, but each layer ended up being like 2 1/3" in ht. I made the WASC recipe, well one the 10" sunk in the middle completely. I decided i had to make another one, and did so 2 days before I needed to put the cake together. Stored everything no problems. Made the fondant, no problems. So the day I was going to put everything together, the day before the party. I torted the cakes and frosted them. When it comes to roll out the fondant i had so many problems.By the way I made Toba's recipe posted on this site. I tried different alternatives to rolling it out.First it stuck to the counter then it tore, then it stretched. I wasn't rolling it too thin i made sure of that, Used powdered sugar and ended up using shortening and I think I might have used more than needed. Finally I rolled it on a piece of vinyl and that worked . Covered all my cakes wonderfully. I doweled the cakes and I decided to add extra dowels to my bottom cake and cut them a bit bigger so the top cake woudn't have to sit directly on top of the bottom tier because it was too heavy. It crushed the fondant. Fine was able to fix it. Next day the fondant on the bottom tier is even more wrinkled from one side. So I took the doll cake off and turned it to the other side and the cake kept settling and wrinkling the fondant. Drove the cake to the event place and the cake seemed to settle more with drive .

Somehow was able to fix but how do you prevent that from happening. What did I do wrong? How do you roll the fondant so that it doesn't stick and it doesn't break so much? For some reason this fondant was so stretchy. Was it the shortening? First time using this recipe. I've used MMF before and it's stretchy but for some reason this seemed even more? I don't know.

The person liked the cake and even called me to tell me how pretty it was but still I didn't feel comfortable with it. I don't have a picture to show right now. I will post one as soon as I can. Thanks for any input.

ercaann79....i did everything you mentioned and I still had problems. Mainly with the first rolling for the first cake. The next ones went a little smoother but the fondant was still sticky . I had to use sugar and shortening to roll and to handle it. thanks for responding to my post.

Thank you mommy_of_3_DDs!

Jazz2U--I don't have a Wilton mat but I used a clear vinyl mat. The kind you buy by the roll. It kept sticking to the counter and then I remembered somebody on here had mentioned that they used a vinyl mat and I just happened to have some in one of my teaching supplies ( i am a teacher) and used that and it worked like a charm but the fondant was still too soft I noticed and I don't know whether its from the grease.