My baby girl's first birthday is this coming Saturday, and I made the decision about a week ago to make her cake myself.

My idea was to do a 3-tier cake with filling.

Keep in mind that I have never done this in my life!

I made the tiers today. They are in the freezer right now. I didn't want to be overwhelmed next weekend with doing an entire cake, so I went the freezing direction.

I got a recipe for a strawberry filling and made that today (just for practice).

Now I'm worried about the filling side of it. With this being my first cake and all, should I ditch the filling and stay on the easy side? I'm just afraid of it melting or something... and the cake falling over. I don't want to simply put icing in between. There's already going to be way too much icing for my taste. I was hoping to have some sort of fruity flavor in there, but if doing a filling is going to be too much trouble, I don't want to bother. The last thing I'd want to do is ruin her birthday cake and beg a store to quickly make something for me.

Suggestions?

EDIT: Now I'm thinking of doing a cream cheese/strawberry jam filling. Am I able to fill each layer of cake the day before the party and sit out in a cool room? Or does it have to be in the fridge?

I need a filling (an easy filling! ha) that can stay out of the fridge.

Quite an ambisious project you have set up for yourself Just like me when I made my daughter's wedding cake never having made a decorated cake before!
I've not used the recipe you speak of but have filled 100s of cakes
When you are ready, pipe a line of icing around the edge of the cake w/tip 12 and a stiff icing. Place the filling inside that line. Do NOT go any higher than the line of icing. Then place the top layer of cake on. The icing will hold it in place.
Do the same w/each tier.

I did the same thing for my DD's 1st Bday having never made a cake! So good luck to you! If you want you could do a thin layer of filling and a layer of regular BC on top, I did stick with regular BC as filling as making and decorating a stacked cake is a real mission especially when you've never done it before! I was up 'till 1am the night before and still doing finishing touches the next morning, and I did the freezing thing too!!
You will defo get the help you need here though!
Post a pic when your done!

Cream cheese when is combined with sugars tends to get preserved out of the freezer ok for a day. If you have a very soft filling make extra stiff buttercream for the edge of the edge of the cake just like kakelady suggested...Still dont use lots..It gets to slippery!..
Edna