Wow, thanks everyone for the comments on this. I first tried the drag method with different tools & didn't like the messy look I was getting. Next I scraped all the icing off & tried piping it on - loved the look but wasn't close enough to the picture. So I went back to smoothing a thick layer on then using a long skewer to do the lines. I used a template because I wanted to be sure I did a long diagonal but then as someone else mentioned, my lines were too perfectly spaced. I tried adding some random ones in at the end to mix it up a bit but then got scared that would just ruin the whole thing and didn't want to do it a 4th time. I think if I were to do this one again I'd just wing the lines & try for a more random look. The bride & groom seemed happy with it so that's what really counts. If anyone still has suggestions or constructive critisim, I'd love to hear them in case I ever get asked to this again. Thanks again for all your comments, you are all so very helpful!

it is easy to his seems once stacked, you just pipe acolor of Ri (normally but in this case you wuld use ganache at a runnier consitecy) then brush it into the egges to conceal the joins, i use this tecjnique on all my cakes to hide the joins and then you don't nee a border to hide the edges

I honestly love it just as much as the original! Great job!

Wow--that looks amazing! It's great that you just tried it, even though you weren't sure. Congratulations!