First Wedding cake - with M&Ms - questions, questions...

I am pretty amateur compared to some of the amazing cakes on here..so I am asking for much assistance and guidance!

I have been asked to do a wedding cake for a co-worker's daughter to help out with the wedding. They want a simple cake, buttercream frosting, 3 tier with M&Ms on the side to decorate. Similar to the one posted below (purple).

The anticipate the cake feeding 75 people. I was thinking of the tiers being 12, 10, 8 (assuming the top tier goes to the bride and groom). I am not sure if I should do two layers of 3 in cakes or two layers of 2in cakes.

If anyone has a guess as to how many M&Ms I should buy, or bc frosting to make to be on the safe side is appreciated!!

My other concerns are stacking the cake (with dowels...never did that before) and transporting the cake. Should I transport the cake assembled because I anticipated having to decorate the M&Ms once the tiers are together to make sure the pattern is such...and I can't imagine trying to put the tiers together with the M&Ms on the sides as I just picture M&Ms falling off and making a bigger mess...

Thank you in advance!! Much appreciated!

That first line made me laugh out loud! Thanks!
Great idea on the mess rubber liner. Also great reminders on bring lots of extras and what not for touch-ups/repairs.

Thankfully they are covering the cost of everything (M&Ms included) and I am "just" putting it all together and transporting. The venue is about an hour from home, so as long as I keep it chilled in the fridge until we leave I hope it will be alright.

Has anyone ever had an instance of the M&Ms melting on the frosting? There will be so many, that I don't think it would be too noticable, but just curious.

I am going to do a superhero cake for my son prior to the wedding and thought I would do an intial superhero emblem on the side in M&Ms to be a small test.

Thank you everyone!!

Very true! I'll check and see if they care if they are specifically M&Ms or rather something similar ( I feel like I have seen knock-offs where you can buy colors in bulk). Teal and silver/platinum are the colors they are going for...

For my first stacked cake, I think it went well (you can see the pictures of how it turned out in my profile). I am not a professional by any means.

The bride purchased the M&Ms for me and I think they bought 26lbs which was WAY more than needed. I probably used 1/5 of that, if even that much. It was comforting to have more than needed in case of mess-ups and what not.

I had to transport it two hrs away, and I definitely had to do some touch-ups as M&Ms fell on in transit (brought extra buttercream frosting with me to add a small dab to help it stick back on), but nothing critical that couldn't be mended. But definitley plan to adjust after transporting. (I stacked - with dowels - and decorated it prior to transporting because of time constraints and I wouldn't know how to stack it after getting there with all of the M&Ms on there).

I used the crusting buttercream recipe on here
http://cakecentral.com/recipe/fluffy-crusting-buttercream
which crusted well, but I did have to play with the consistency a little as for me it was stiff (so just added more liquid as recommended).

My cake was a three tier, (with two 3 inch layers in each tier), 12 x 10 x 8 inch.

Overall it held up well and by the time they brought it out for display (caterers at the wedding), you could see it starting to buckle just slightly, but I think only the trained eye would have noticed it.

Hope that helped and GOOD LUCK! Don't forget to post pictures!!

one other side note:

When I did a test run with my son's birthday cake (put M&MS on the side in the shape of a superhero emblem), I put the cake in the fridge overnight and then took it out a couple hrs prior to the party. The change in temperatures caused the M&Ms to fade in color.

For the wedding cake I did, I decorated the cake the day before the wedding and kept it out/covered (not touching the cake) and the color of the M&Ms stayed as they should.

Stacking and decorating (including crumb coating and actual layer of buttercream frosting) the cake took me the better part of a day...but that could also be from my lack of experience overall (and only me doing it)