Hello there fellow cake decorators! I am delivering my first 4 tiered wedding cake, and first paid wedding cake tomorrow. It is 4 tiered starting with 14" square on bottom, 12" round, 8" square, 6" round. I am trying to think through this process and hoping if there are any glarring problems, someone can help me before it's too late! So I am going to put the bottom layer on a cardboard cake board that will be glued with BC to a mirror and underneath the mirror, my hubby is cutting a piece of plywood for added support.

1) I have wooden dowels for each tier...my local cake shop didn't have SPS system, so I am sticking with wood...lol! I typically glue each tier to the previous one using a little BC, but the lady at the cake shop said to put a little powdered sugar underneath the board so that when that tier is removed, it wont take all the icing with it. Thoughts on this?

2) I was planning on stacking at home and then delivering fully assembled...feeling nervous because of the horror stories I have read on here. I was planning to put a dowel rod in the center,  running through each tier to stabalize it. How much will this cake weigh?

-another note about stacking, I have had my tiers in the freezer...can I go ahead and just stack them coming straight out of fridge and freezer? or should I let them come to room temp? I don't have a freezer/fridge large enough to accomodate the bottom tier, so I am planning to ice that tonight and have it be fresh when I begin to stack...

3) I have to attach ribbon to the cake..should I do this after I stack the tiers? Also, the ribbon is black satin...I have heard others say they coat their ribbon in crisco and wipe clean with a paper towel to avoid the grease from icing bleeding unevenly onto the ribbon...this a good idea? also, do I need to overlap ribbon or cut it to where the two ends meet exactly...I have used ribbon before, but didn't think about it nearly as much as when it is going on a wedding cake!

4) Do I need more than one cardboard cake board under each tier before I stack it?

5) Also, I have brooches to attach to 2 of the tiers...what is the best way to do this? Just with BC, I don't plan on making any other kind of icing...I may have some candy melts up in the cabinet

6) I am also attaching artificial roses...they are already washed and drying..I plan to wrap the stems with saran wrap before I put them into cake..If I want to reduce the amount of holes put in the top tier, can I just cut off entire stem and use hot glue gun if flower starts to come apart? can I then put flower with hot glue on the cake?

Any advice/suggestions are greatly appreciated..This bride is so sweet and I just want to give her the best cake that I can!

Ahello, this is what i do, everyone on here has their own ways, so hopefully more people will answer and you will have lots of choices to choose from. :grin:

room temp cakes before stacking

i use crusting buttercream, so have never used powdered sugar between stacks, good idea though.

be very careful about wooden dowel, it must go into bottom cake board, but you don't want it going through or it will scratch, break, or allow your cake to slide on mirror, under the weight of the cake which will probably be about 50-60 lbs.

you only need one cardboard between stacks

take a small amount of bc add a little more powdered sugar to your icing and make it stiffer for attaching ribbon and brooches. if not brooches will slide because of weight or fall off.

i cut ribbon that overlaps slightly, as for the ribbon greasing, color bleeding etc, i cant help with, sorry. it all depends on what type of ribbon, quality, etc.. that you will have to practice with before hand.

as for flowers, i would cut a cake-board down to the size you need, add a mound of icing to it to hold the flower in place and decorate it with the flowers and then add some buttercream to the bottom of the board and place it on top of the cake. No holes to worry about, or hot glue etc, just remove the board when ready to serve.

i hope some of this helps, have fun playing and planning. good luck and let us know how it goes. ohh.. if you are leaving the plywood under the mirror make sure to add bc to hold it and mirror together. just an after thought there.

thank you so much for your reply! There seem to be some pretty talented decorators on here, and I very much appreciate your input. You gave me several things to think about ;) I like the idea of decorating a cake board and not putting flowers into the actual cake! so smart!

Well, it didn't go off without a hitch, but I survived!!! Thank you again for your input! Here is the finished product.

Very pretty! How exactly did you deliver it? Already stacked? And how did you carry it? I carried a three tier cake to deliver right to a birthday party and I about died!! My next wedding cake is in three weeks and I will be carrying it up stairs!! So I am slightly wigging out. LOL I should probably make a very sturdy cake stand but I am not sure about carrying it. =/