I'm doing a cake for a wedding a ten-hour drive away. I have successfully transported filled, frozen, un-iced cake tiers and assembled and decorated at my destination before, so I'm not worried about that. This bride wants a calligraphy scrolls-design cake. I have the design, and I'm thinking that an easy way to do it would be to pipe it in royal icing on hardened gumpaste plaques that are a little smaller than the (square) cake sides, and transport them between layers of foam. On the day of the wedding, I'd ice (buttercream) the cake and position the plaques on the sides. My concerns are: (1) Will the royal icing adhere to the gumpaste and not fall off? (2) Will the plaques be too heavy for the buttercream to hold, and slide down on the cake? (3)Will the gumpaste soften and slump? and (4) Will the plaques stick too well and make a huge mess for the caterers when they try to get them off? Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks very much.

You'll probably need to decide which do you want--do you want it well stuck on or easy to get off?

Doesn't seem like you can have both.

I don't see any reason the gumpaste would not stick if you put it onto fresh buttercream, and make sure you don't wait until the icing crusts.

I am picturing very thinly rolled out pieces of gumpaste with scrolls on them. Let me know if you mean something else.

I have put gumpaste on buttercream. It does stick well as long as the icing has not crusted. However, I think that I was using much smaller signs than you plan on. I share your concern that the plaques will fall/slide off. Unless you are putting paper thin gumpaste on you shouldn't have too much trouble with the plaques absorbing mositure because the icing will crust some, even underneath the plaques. Good luck!