Hi Cake Decorating Friends...
I just agreed to do a cake for someone late February and I'm alittle nervous since this is the first one for someone other then my sisters The bride to be wants a 9, 12 & 14 hearts on a floating heart stand which is great (no dowling). There will be around 150 people so according to Wilton that should be good but my worry is about the pattern she wants. She said she wants a diamond pattern with edible pearls on the sides and top of each tier. Can anyone tell me if this is gonna be hard to do? She also wants ribbon around the bottom edge, I usually use all edible things on my cakes so I'm not sure if the buttercream will mess the ribbon up. Is there a way to prevent this. I am charging her $2. per serving since its a pretty simple cake with no flowers or boarders. Any help ya'll can give me is so appreciated.

you can get diamond impression mats, which would make life easier. by edible pearls, does she mean dagrees, or fondant balls? you can buy pearl moulds, which will help if she wants fondat, otherwise it will just take a bit of time.
there have been oter posts about using real ribbon - i think the general advice it to iron some wax paper over the ribbon, to protect everything. or you could make a fondant/ gumpaste ne so its still all edible.
let us know how it turns out!

The diamond impression mat is great and very easy to use. (Sugarshack, aka Sharon Zambito, demonstrates its use on her Buttercream DVD. She also sells the mat.)

http://www.sugaredproductions.com/buttercreamdvd.html

For the pearls you might also consider Sugar Pearls. They come in a variety of sizes and colors. They can be difficult to place on the cake; I think the easiest way is to use long, angled tweezers.

If you want to keep everything edible, fondant ribbon is the way to go. You can even luster dust it so that it has a sheen like the pearls.

*edited to add missing word