I am making my first wedding cake and have a few questions. It is a 2 tiered cake. A 12 x 9. My first question is after I make the cake how do I store it & box it up for the bride to pick up? I haven't seen boxes that big so I wasn't sure what you did to keep it fresh. My second question is since it is only a 2 tiered cake I don't need to put anything betwen the two tiers right? I can just stack them right on top of each other and they will be ok? Thanks for any help.

Just use a cardboard box. Go to FedEx or UPS and they have a bunch of different sizes. If you have a 12" round, I'm guessing you will put it on a 14 or 16" board, so you'll need to look for a box that's big enough to accommodate that. The easiest thing to do is to tape up one end of the box, then set it on it's side and slide the cake in that way. Then just tape up the open end. That means that you need a box that's at least 16" high, by whatever the height of your finished cake. If the box ends up being a little too big, you can either hot-glue some pieces of foam around the base to keep it centered in the box, or put a piece of double-sided sticky tape under the edge of the base after you get it in the box. Make sense?

When you stack your tiers, just use a cardboard cake round between them (rather than plastic plates), and hammer a sharpened dowel rod down through from the top. That way you can move it anywhere you want without fear of the top tier sliding off. Be sure to use drinking straws in the base tier to sit the top tier on. Feel free to send me a PM if this isn't making sense.

1.) Go to a storage place and buy a regular cardboard box. you don't have to, but I always put my cakes in a box. It keeps any dirt from getting on them in transport, blocks direct sunlight that can melt it, and helps to keep the cake cold.

2.) YES you need to dowel your cake.

Walmart sells cardboard packing boxes,

also, if you are using a large packing box, I cut it so I can let one of the sides down so that I can slide the cake out to remove it instead of trying to reach to the bottom of a box that is taller than my arms are long ( I'm kinda short,lol) put the cake in and tape it up.

Paulstonia - my instructor in pastry school taught me to just get a box that's big enough that you can turn it on it's side to slide the cake in. Much better than cutting down the side of the box.

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I got the answers I was looking for.