Request from bride to duplicate intricate border from invitations around bottom of each of 4 fondant covered round tiers....

I stink at freehand piping...

if I purchased an edible image of the border and attached it to a fondant ribbon and then wrapped it around the cake, would that work? It sounds way too easy..

can anyone offer advice, suggestions, potential drawbacks to this? can I then pipe on the image to give it a little texture?

I'd be so grateful for any help that can be given. Thanks!!

in teory it should work. Why not do a trial run? the only problem I can think of is that the image might crack if you wrap it around a round cake, the images I've bought is fairly stiff, but maybe you get a diff brand in the US

I agree about doing a trial run. I have done fondant plaques with edible images, but have never tried what you are describing. I would think that you would have to work quickly. Maybe you could think about just attaching the edible image as your border without bothering with the fondant ribbon? Good luck. It sounds like something interesting to try! Let us know how it turns out!

I've put an edible image on fondant (see HS musical & snapple cakes in my photos). On the snapple cake it was slightly bent, but on HSM it was flat.

Duff did something similar in episode I caught this weekend. He put edible images of postcards on gum paste (made them look like thick post cards), then piped over some of the design to give it depth - looked good. Here is a link to Duff's cake: http://www.charmcitycakes.com/noflash/index.cfm?rd=cakes2&cat=2&id=355