Cassidy Turns 17

 6"-8"-10"-12"

This is the first 4 tier cake that I've made and I wasn't sure how I was going to go about transporting it. I was going to either stack all 4 tiers and transport it that way, or stack only the bottom two tiers and add the top two at the venue. I did lots of research and it seemed that more often, people choose to transport the cake with just the bottom tiers stacked and assemble the rest on site. I contacted 2 of my cake maker friends and one of them transports their 4 tier cakes already stacked and the other one assembles on site. I went back and forth sooo many times trying to figure out what to do. I decided to stack all 4 tiers and I used the little wooden dowels in each tier for support. The next morning when I got up, I checked on the cake and the bottom tier had started to buckle a little bit and within a few hours, it had buckled more and now the second tier from the bottom had started to crack from sinking into the bottom tier. =( So I had to disassemble the whole cake, cut the fondant off of the bottom 2 tiers, re-iced them and covered them in fondant again. I went to Hobby Lobby and got the thick plastic dowels for support. This time when I stacked the tiers, there was no buckling! PHEW! Then it came time for transporting it. The venue was 30 min away. I drove while my mom sat in the back seat to keep an eye on the cake. We drove on semi bumpy roads and over a set of railroad tracks and I was so tense the whole time! The cake made it safely to it's destination...such a relief!! I'm seriously considering removing 4 tier cakes from my menu just because it's scary to drive around with such a tall cake! The picture above was taken with my iPhone before the cake was delivered. I brought my DSLR camera with me so that I could take pictures of it at the venue. The customer provided the cake topper and I wanted to photograph the cake with the topper on. The lighting in the room wasn't great for photos and it kept making my pictures look kind of yellow. So here is one picture that I took at the venue, once the topper had been added...