my customer wantsa a square offset tier wedding cake. 3 tiers. 10" 8" and 6". so she picked the stencils and one of them is a phrase. i got them and they are all pretty much too big. i tried explaining to her before i ordered them that they probably won't fit and i can make the cake a size bigger but she said not to do that and that she trusts my professional opinion to make it work. so the only thing i can think of is for the phrase "love and laughter, happily ever after". she mentioned doing one half on one side and one half on the other because the middle tier is not going to be front facing but offset. so i can't fit the phrase on that tier. i can space them out so there is a 1/4th of the phrase on each side of the middle tier but that's all i can think of.

the only way to make it work is to upsize her cake to a 12", 10" and 8". but then the top tier will be rather large being a top tier.

any ideas?

would it look bad if i did parts of the phrase on each tier?

also the other two stencil patterns she ordered are from the fleur de lis designer stencil set but they are also both too big. the whole design isn't going to fit. will it look tacky?

I had the same problem last year. A bride wanted a Mendi pattern so I showed her the stencils. She decided to take the stencil design in a program and create how she wanted her cake to look like. Well ofcourse her pattern wouldnt fit on the cake because the stencils were way too big for it. So I had to basically use only parts of the stencils and pipe some of it by hand. It didnt come out exactlyl like her original vision but she was ok with it. I would just call her and tell her exactly what you just said and see if she is ok with that. If not, then try to come up with a design using the stencils the way they are. You have to make sure SHE is happy. If she just tells you to use your professional opinion let her know exactly what you plan on doing before you do it so that there are no surprises on her part!!

She trusts your professional opinion, but not really, since she won't take your advice.

I'd call and give her two options. Use a different stencil or order a bigger cake. Period. But then I'm pretty no nonsense and direct.

Would you be able to put your stencil in a printer and get some thick acetate and put it in your printer and downsize or shrink the original stencil and cut it out with exacto knife? Charge her for the labor of course.

would it look tacky if i did "love" on the top tier, "and laughter" on the middle tier, "happily ever after" on the bottom tier?