Unfortunately, I saw the first wedding disaster this weekend. The wedding cake had buttercream roses on the sides of the cake in these arches and they somehow came off and pulled icing with them. Started on the sides, then the back, and 3 hours before the wedding the front as well. There was only one arch of roses left. I don't really know what exactly happened, all I can think of is that decorations could have been too heavy. I've seen similar cakes before and they seemed to work okay, so don't really know what the trick will be to attaching buttercream roses to the sides of the cake. Really hated it for the bride and the decorator.

the picture does not seem to attach. Sorry : ( Here is the link
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2096735

Oh my.... that's a sad story. Was it hot in the venue?

How horrible for the bride and groom and the deocrator. It looks like it was such a cute cake too.

first, it looks like they didn't dirty/crumb coat the cake...and second it looks like they used royal icing flowers :p are you sure they were bc? i just don't see how that would happen

i feel really bad for the bride and groom after looking at the cake again i can tell they were royal icing flowers because once fallen off the cake there was breakage but the ones that had landed face down also kept their shape...so, if they were bc it would've melted right along with the icing falling off. such a shame

No, it was not hot at the venue. Hmmm, I assumed they were buttercream because that's what I was told was ordered. They were crusted very bad, but the icing was too, it seemed like it was too hard or something. I guess they could have been royal. It's not my style, so I don't really know for sure.
And yes, I don't think it was crumb coated, it also didn't have a dam, you could see filling where the icing came off and the top tier had some bulging. It was offset on a cake board (or slid) and the top tier either slid or was not centered. I don't know what the supports were. The cake was picked up the night before the wedding, transported to the house of the bride and then to the venue the next morning. Daughter of the bride said roses started falling off after 10 minute drive from shop to the house the night before. It just got progressively worse from there. I did not want to voice my observations, as I know "regular" folks look at cakes differently, and my way is not necessary the only way to do the cake, plus I did not know what it started out as or if something happened during transport by client.

Oh no....now I'm going to have nightmares! I have a three tiered wedding cake this weekend. The bride wants buttercream and I'm using Indideby's as the best bet inthe summer heat. I plan to crumb coat as usual but the bride has requested (insisted) on bouquets of sugar paste flowers down two sides of the cake at the corner edges. The flowers seems heavy so I've bundled the flowers on a stick that I plan to secure into the cake which will be on a SPS support). Am I courtiing disaster? The venue has A/C but now I'm really starting to worry. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome

I have no idea, I'm kinda scarried now too. Maybe put flowers into the cake on site? That way they don't jiggle during transport and cause damage?

any time i need to add elements on the cake i assemble and put those on there...the more time the cake is in MY possession without being out in the elements and near people that don't know about cake, the better i say

Putting the flowers on at the venue is a great idea. My daughter and I are going to be at the reception the whole time helping the caterers and cutting the cake. i can just see it now, my daughter and I lurking around the cake the whole time at the ready to prop up the flowers. My daughter suggests we dress up like cupids and try to blend into the cake decor.

southerncross, if you give yourself enough time you can lessen your chances of disaster by transporting the tiers separately and doing everything there before hand hope you have fun and everything goes well...your idea sounds cute for the cupid thing

The roses could be air-dried buttercream.

Whether dried BC or RI, I doubt they'd be heavy enough to pull the icing off (possibly heavy enough to fall off during transport though). I'd guess that the roses did help to pull the icing off in this case because the cake was probably iced with an icing tip and the icing may not have had good contact directly to the cake. I also notice the red filling which might have contributed to preventing the icing from adhering properly. JMO.

(Wish we could have seen the side or back of the cake where the roses stayed putit looks like a nicely decorated cake.)

the photo is no longer available, so I couldn't see how the roses were applied. I love doing cascading roses on the sides of cakes and as mentioned above, my method is to transport to the venue, then apply the roses onto the cakes.

I build from teh bottom up, using the lower level roses as support for the upper level roses. Here's my favorite example and you can see that the larger roses are laying (lying?) on the top of the tiers with the smaller lightweight roses on the sides: http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1496730

Here's one where you can see a somewhat larger rose right on the side of the cake (bottom tier): http://cakecentral.com/gallery/750403

My roses are always air-dried BC, which means the moisture has evaporated, taking a lot of the weight of a "wet" rose with it. The air-dried roses are very lightweight and with proper application at the venue, should adhere pretty good. I just put a blop of BC on the back of the rose as the glue to hold them in place.

Without being able to see the cake ..... If the roses were pulling the icing off of the cake, I suspect the roses had quite a bit of weight to them. Making them in advance and allowing them to air dry may have help with this situation.

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I agree it is good to assemble at the venu but it can be very nerve wracking also because some how there are always people there to decorate or do something and they always stop to watch every little detail that is done to the cake. Also the last time i delivered a cake unfinished to a venu my dh forgot to cout how many tiers he put in the car and I got there with 4 out of 5 tiers and the venu was over an hour away from our place. So I had the being upset about the forgotten tier, and the worry of not enough cake for the guests and then the stress of finishing the cake there on site where half the guests were already there drinking and offering endless help. Not one of my better memories, and the last time I did that.
Now cakes are finished as much as possible, and transported together unless too heavy or design is such that it isn't possible.

have you ever made marshmallow centered roses they are much lighter in weight than reguar frosting roses. Making them less likely to pull off the cake.. you can also add a skewer to them to place into the cake without worry of the skewer or toothpick coming out in the cake.. More visible as not to be eaten.. yet making flowers more stable on the cake.

Oh goodness, i don't know what happened to the pic. I re-uploaded, it won't let me just attach. Here is the link
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2097059

This is not my cake, and I haven't done like this one before, so I didn't want to speculate what exactly happened to it, but all your input is very helpful should I ever get a request for something like that. As I said earlier, the cake was picked up by the customer the evening before and then transported to the venue the following day. My husband was trying to take the pics with his iphone while I was assessing the damage, and I was shooing him away as he was on the way, hence no pictures from all sides. In addition, most of the roses were down, and one arc that was still holding on was pulling away from the cake, so it was hard to see what it would have looked like with it all in place. I also figured if customer wanted to take this up with her cake decorator, it would be her responsibility to take photos to prove her case. There were some other issues, like sliding of both tiers and leaning and bulging of filling, so I didn't really want to bring attention to that, if customer did not notice. Plus, she could have been at fault for some or all of the damage. After reading these forums, I learned there were all kinds of customers and that was the first time I actually saw damage like this in person. I don't have enough experience to say what actually happened. I have a photo of the cake from the front after I fixed the bottom tier, but I could not put the roses back up on the sides: I didn't have enough roses and I didn't know if they would stay up the second time around.

You can't post pics of other peoples cakes. That's why it was removed.

I didn't know, I'll delete it then. I could not figure out how to attach it to the post. It does not seem to work. Sorry : (

Like IndyDebi, our roses were buttercream and were always airdried, making them very light weight. We built cascades from the bottom up as well. Never remember ever loosing a cascade (in 45 years) when done this way.
It was always one of my favorite styles. too.

Thanks you all. They were not done as a cascade, more of a these arc, swag things...you know the semicircles that touch the top of the tier then swoop down and touch, like a scallop edge. If you could see the photo, you'd see the shape of icing that pulled off. I deleted the photo, b/c I did not know I could not post someone's else's cake.
Is it why they fell, because you need to do them as a cascade, so the top flowers are supported by bottom ones? Not as a scalloped thing?
Sorry, I don't know what the terminology is...