my best friend is eloping next week and has decided to have a reception on the 26th, and i told her that i would make her cake for free. it doesnt have to be huge and fancy, they are kinda un-traditional, im going to meet with her tomorrow to make a couple decisions about to cake, like the flavors, but the overall design is totally up to me, she doenst want to know anything about the design, she just wants a round stacked cake!

ok to get to my question...im thinking of doing ribbon around the bottom on the cake, how do i get it to stay together?

and i know that im probably getting myself into a huge mess, but this will be my first wedding cake, does anyone have any suggestions/advice?

Are you covering in BC or fondant? If you're using BC, make sure to use wax paper as backing for your ribbon so that it doesn't get greasy from the BC. I normally attach ribbon using royal icing. For fondant, I would just attach it with RI.

HTH

i would love to use fondant, but im not that good yet, so im going to use bc, thanks for the heads up with the wax paper!!

You will get a few opinions on the ribbon............I use it with crusted BC, and just attach it at the back of the cake with a dot of fresh BC..........some satin ribbons, I have "greased" with pam first to have it intentionally greasy, so there are not spots, and others I have not.........it's up to you.

I just did one this past weekend - I was really surprised it turned out as nice as it did.
It was "blue" buttercream, with a white satin ribbon around the bottom of each tier.
Learned from some experts here to use double faced scotch tape to tape waxed paper on the back of the ribbon so it doesn't soak up that grease - it was the best "trick". And I just attached it with a bit of buttercream here and there. I was skeptical about just the icing holding the ends together so I stuck a pin there until I was completely done -then pulled the pin out before I left.

Someone at another time when this question was asked said to cut a piece of fondant that's the same size and length as the ribbon. I thought that was a really good idea. But I'm still wondering how do you keep it from getting greasy if you're going to do a border at the bottom.

I did this for my daughter's wedding cake. I used a crusting buttercream and a heavy satin ribbon. I didn't use any wax paper, and just a dot of icing to seal the edges. turned out beautifully.

I think the colors of your icing and the ribbon come into play here. The grease makes the white ribbon almost opaque. I would think with a dark ribbon, it would just make it darker.
The test I did before hand, my white ribbon looked blue. With the waxed paper it didn't get greasy so it stayed white.
There was no other border on the cake.

thank you guys for all your help!! I really appericate it, I'm calling in the big dogs for some help with this cake!! my mil has been decorating cakes for 35 years and i really want this cake to be awesome! i just found out that my friends mother decided to buy her a wedding cake, my friend tried to tell her that i like this kind of thing and that im perfectly capable of doing it, but she insisted that she has to buy a wedding cake for her baby. i dont know if she thinks that im going to make a sheet cake and use betty crocker frosting, or she just wants to do something to help plan the wedding, but im going to make sure that the best cake there is the one i bring!!

OH WOW!! If only I'd known about that wax paper trick sooner!! You guys on here are so cool!! I just did a cake with Butter Cream for my inlaws anniversary. The ribbon got spots on it, but I just let it crust for a long time, then it wasnt so bad. I just lived with it.. But, I used corsage pins to attatch my ribbon. Gave the cake a more elegant look as well. I was very happy with it! Here's the picture---

Hi,
I asked this same ? last month. I had been given the suggestion of using piping gel to hold the ribbon and it worked great. I iced my cake up the night before and let it crust overnight. I made a small piping bag of gel and cut the whole just big enough so the gel would come out. I applied the gel to the back of the ribbon as I was putting it on the cake. It's sticky and holds to the cake and there was no soaking thru of the b/c as well.

Dawn

i have used steralized sewing pins (with the pearl ball on the end) i try and match them with the ribbon and they work wonderfuly to keep the ribbon in place and look very clean. it is also really easy to remove the ribbon before cutting it and not messy at all!