Next month my niece is getting married and she wants me to make her cake. Great! Only problem is I live in MO and she lives in CT (hundreds of miles apart)
I was thinking of baking the cakes, putting them in a cooler with dry ice and checking them in as luggage. The only thing I'm afraid of is the cargo area and the altitude - what would it do to the cakes?
I really don't want to send cake pans, leveler etc.
Any advise besides telling her I'll pay for her wedding cake??

If I were you I'd be afraid of the baggage handler! There is absolutly no way I'd check a cake. I have carried a cake on before (in a soft-side cooler, wrapped & frozen, & stacked in the baking pans to protect them) but it was just for a short 1 hr flight..

I made my son's wedding cake for his wedding in Las Vegas.

I baked the cakes (here in OH), wrapped each layer well in saran wrap and foil, and boxed each LAYER in a very close fitting box (my DH cut down regular cake and pie boxes to fit each layer). I pre-cut my bottom boards for each tier and made sure that it fit into the box of one of the layers (added a bit of extra support).

We took a suitcase that could be used as carry-on luggage and carefully put the layers in it. The cake was a 3 tier square (14, 10, 6), so there were 6 layers in the suitcase. We carried it flat, sent it thru the x-ray scanner, and put it into the overhead bin. All of the other supplies--buttercream, tools, fondant, etc. went into a huge suitcase that was checked luggage.

The cakes arrived in Las Vegas in perfect condition. The buttercream had been frozen in empty fondant buckets before flying, and it was barely defrosted after the 4+ hr. flight. The cakes weren't filled, just torted with buttercream between.

I spent 2 days assembling and decorating the cakes, in between my mother of the groom duties.

It can be done, with no dry ice and not too much hassle.

HTH
Rae

That's a beautiful wedding cake... and different!