Hi everyone! I have a friend that has asked me to make her 65th birthday/25th anniversary cake. I gave her some suggestions on cakes I thought I could put together. She liked this design:

My friend wants a 6/8/10/12 tiers.  My questions:

1.  It looks like the Styrofoam inserts are the same size.  How do I determine the size for each layer?

2.  It also looks like the inserts are 3" tall - is that right?

3.  My big question:  how do I stack this so it doesn't fall over? I was assuming to put SPS boards, then the Styrofoam, but how do I ensure the tiers don't collapse? Dowling all the way through seems like it would put Styrofoam into the cake?  The event is outdoors in Southern California in November(she said no heat lamps near the dessert and it will be in an alcove with a caterer on site that is doing the dinner - I am also going to be there so I will set up the cake just prior to the event starting).

I have pm'd the person who made the cake and have not heard back yet. Also, I am going to cover the inserts with fabric like the picture.  Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

the foam separators need to be graduated -- post #5 on this thread 

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/68445-demo-making-a-wedding-cake-at-home/  --

shows some i made -- i guess i don't give dimensions -- they look to be 4-5 inches smaller than the board --

yours look to be 3" tall -- you put the dowel under the separation -- which is why they need to be graduated --

I made a cake like this and this is how I did it from bottom up. Cake board, cake, SPS, styrofoam glued to SPS it is sitting on, Dowel glued into the middle of the syrofoam. The next cake board (atleast 1/2 inch foamcore) had a pre-cut center hole for the dowel to go through upon stacking. Repeat per how many tiers. Then on site I simply stacked the tier on top of each dowel of the tier below. Those spacers all look the same size which is fine as long as your cake board below each tier can hold the cake on it's own. Order the SPS the size of the styrofoam. 

Thank you K8Memphis and FioreCakes!  That is great advice/information.

I did read that entire thread k8memphis had on her cake - the cake turned out so beautiful and it looked like a ton of work!

FioreCakes - I read your post to my husband who is going to help me construct it and we both thought "that makes perfect sense!"  Thank you!!

HI Cheriej, I 'know' the lady who made that cake but she's not been on our thread for quite a few weeks now. I'm guessing she's a busy cake lady. You got some good help here though so good luck with your cake! Do show the finished product!

Ok everyone here is how the cake turned out!  I am so relieved to have finished this! I did receive a message also from Bashini whose beautiful navy and cameo cake was the inspiration for this.  The person who wanted this cake originally wanted a design very simple and very close to what Bashini had but she went a little bigger and wilder with the bling wrap etc.  Personally, I liked the look of Bashini's cake better but this is what she wanted. A huge THANK YOU to all of you for helping me! I would never have been able to pull this off without your help.

I can definitely say this cake is 50% construction. My husband - cake engineer , helped with all the measuring, drilling holes in the Styrofoam and cake board to put the dowels in.  My brand new KitchenAid Architect Series II lower double oven broke right before I had to bake this. At least I had the upper oven which baked a little fast but it worked. Just took a little longer. All layers were from scratch, two layers which were then torted into four as follows (each layer is 4" tall):

12" - Dark Chocolate cake with whipped cream filling

10' - vanilla cake with Chambord cream cheese filling

8" - lemon cake with lemon curd

6" - lemon cake with lemon curd

I was really pleased with how the cake sliced - it came out looking perfect.   And everyone kept coming up to me saying how great the cake was etc. I still need to figure out how to get my corners straight and crisp but I was so tired I just wanted to get the cake done. The one thing I would do differently is the top tier I did not have an SPS plate because they don't make it in 4" size. I just used a cut out of 4" square from a cake board and had it sitting on the four SPS pillars.  I did not dowel through it and I would definitely do that if I did this again just for peace of mind. I did not know they were going to put their wedding album (25 year anniversary) on the cake table and people also left presents behind the cake so there were a lot of people around the table which was nerve wracking enough. 

ATurned out great!! Your edges look crisp to me!

Beautiful, well done x

it's a gorgeous cake - job very well done -- you're very welcome --

best to you