Hi I am new here. I am an intermediate experienced cake decorator. Several questions.
I have an out of town Sandcastle Wedding cake to make for my brother in Saint Augustine. They would like one similar to the one on this site. http://www.mikesamazingcakes.com/wedding.html
I will alter the layout to make it different. I need to try to have some of the prep done before leaving home and keep the work down there as simple as possible. The cake will be for approx. 75 people, a 2 layer - 14" square cake maybe? The turrets do not need to be edible to save some prep time. To do the turrets I was thinking of using PVC pipes of various heights and widths covered in icing and crushed Nilla wafers as dummies. Has anyone ever tried to do this? Has anyone tried using molded rice krispie treats as turrets? I still would need something to make the cut out trims of the turrets and trim for around the top of the castle, any suggestions?
What type of cake board should I use to support this? I'd like to shape it kind of free form like in the picture before leaving home. I really need to have it fully assembled and sturdy for transport from our rental house to the reception.
Any helpful suggestions / ideas are welcome! THANKS!

HOLY COW THAT GUYS CAKES REALLY ARE AMAZING!!
I"m very new at this myself so I'm not sure my advice would be so sound. Is there a possibility that if you mixed up some white and brown granulated sugar and pressed it into some fondant that it would adhere? Then you could wrap the turrets around paper towel rolls, or pvc if you wanted it wider.
Good luck, I will love learning on this thread with you.

Here's a sandcastle cake I've made a couple of times. The towers are RK treats. The ramparts (or whatever those little squares around the edges are called) are sugar cubes. The whole thing is covered with buttercream icing, then pulverized vanilla wafers mixed with granulated sugar. Please let me know if you would like any more info.

wow your castle cake is amazing DianeLM. It looks so real I love it. I'd go with that one you cant go wrong its prefect. Good luck

Thanks for your replies so far. Mike's cakes are totally COOL! I can only hope mine will turn out ok. I will be doing a test run.
Wow! that cake is cute DianeLM. Sugar cubes are a neat idea that I hadn't thought of THANKS! I still would like to try tubular turrets. It is going to be pretty hot n humid for transport. Do you think the rice krispie treat will stay firm n stable? I would love to make that part edible if it doesnt take too long and if I know they aren't going to slump. I have heard of using PVC to mold them. Has anyone tried this?

I did a castle cake and used RKT for turrets. I was not happy with the results. They were kind of bumpy - take a look in my pix, you;ll see what i mean. However, since you're going for a textured sand look, you might be ok. Could you sponge on royal for texture then roll in the crushed nilla wafers?

When I make my RK treats for towers, I use half, or less, of the butter called for. This helps the RKs firm up better. What I do is, make a pan of treats, then cut with a greased, square cutter. Before releasing from the cutter, I compress the RKs. I stack up about 10 or so of these pieces to build the tower. Then, I drive a sharpened skewer through the whole thing. Eventually, I'll hammer the dowel into the base board. Those towers don't budge one bit!

The sandcastle in the picture was a 12-inch square, an 8-inch round and a 6-inch round. I used stress free supports. It traveled about 30 miles.

Wow, that Mike guy's pictures really let me know how crappy my stuff is! I think PVC would work fine since you're not trying to stand it on the cake (too heavy) but right on your board. For the board, I would use masonite. You might be able to get a big piece at a hardware store and jigsaw it yourself....if you can't get a custom shape, you could always "draw" one on a standard square board with royal icing in different colors to suggest the ebbing tide. Be sure to post a picture when you're done!