Hi everyone,

I have a friends sisters wedding cake coming up next week, yes its a 4th of july wedding : ).
So heres the full story ,I asked you all earlier for size suggestions and am going with a 16" 14"8"6 tier cake. now the thing is that the bride decided that she only wants the bottom cake to be real and the rest fake, there will be sheet cakes in the back,
So here are my many questions,

1- Can use just wooden dowels for support or should I uses SPS, since the cakes on top are all styro,
2-How far in advance can I cover the styros in fondant, does the fondant start to discolor, I was hoping to do it this Saturday,
3-the sheet cakes would need to serve 130 people, I was thinking of doing two 1/2 sheets (12x1 do these need to be 2 layer or three layers of cake.
and last one
4- do you cover the top of the sheet cake with fondant, if it needs to look like its from the real cake.

I am attaching the picture of the cake she wants, Thank you so much for your help in advance,
anna

Is she paying you for this?

If so, I'd tell her that having sheet cakes that are 2 layers so they look like they were cut from the "real" cake is costing her more than just having the whole cake be cake instead of dummies. After all, she has to pay you for decorating the dummies! So she's paying twice.

Secondly....sheet cakes are single layer cakes, which is why some decorators do them cheaper...they don't have to be filled and stacked. If she's concerned more about it looking like it came from the main cake...then make the whole tiered cake out of CAKE, not dummies.

And if you are doing it for free: Just do the whole thing cake! If it isn't costing her anything, then why decorate a 4 tier cake PLUS a 2-3 layer sheet cake order? It will cost you more time and energy and ingredients to do both.

well actually the brides sister my friend is also a baker and she is going to be working with me on the sheet cakes, their mom is proving all the supplies. the reason we opted for styro was we are all beginner bakers we dont want to risk a leaning or melting cake

if you are both happy to do the extra work then sure, its your choice, if the bride is happy.

be sure that the kitchen cakes look like the real deal though. so the same numbers of layers, the same kind of filling, the same kind of icing - bc and fondant.

a traditional sheet cake is noticabley different from a regular cake, and you dont want the guests to notice!

1+2 i dont have much experience with dummies. id use dowels though. the fondant wont discolour, so should be fine to cover early, although it will set up harder.

3 they need to be the same number of layer as the main cake, in my opinion. by my maths, a 12x18 give 108 wedding servings, so 216, plus the 128 from the 16inch (assume its square?) so you have 344 servings.

4 i would, yes.
xx