Wedding cake needs to travel 4 hours!!!!

[Pootchi]

Ok I've told my nephews that when they're going to get married their favorite auntie, me , will give them their wedding cakes as a present. Well the first nephew is getting married in 2009. I know it's still far away, but my problem is that the wedding will be held 4 hours away from my home. I need to transport the cake there.
I know I've read a lot on forums like here that people did this already, but I don't know how to do it. Should I just bake the cakes, make my icing and put it all together there? or can I decorate each tier, and do the set-up there? I was thinking about making smaller cakes, maybe it's easier to transport, I don't know!
They'll choose their design later this year, so if I know a little in advance what I'll have to go through I can help them choose the right size and design that'll be easier on me!
They're a very young couple, my nephew will be only 20½ when he gets married. They're getting married as the same age as my BIL and SIL.
It shows that time flies!!! he was 4 when I met his uncle!

[jeri]

I took a cake over 3 hours away last summer in the August heat. It is the beach cake on my cake album. I just filled, frosted and covered the cake with fondant before we left. I added the color strips & shells on site. We left early in the morning so we traveled in the cool part of the day. It made it just fine. I did not stack it ahead. Put a piece of shelf liner under each cake inside of a box then put the shelf liner under each box in the trunk. And of course... the luggage had to go in the back seat! I know some people travel with them already stacked but I am a big old chicken!

[Pootchi]

Thanks Jeri for th great tips! I'll remember that, shelf liner and traveling before the sun is too high!
For the decorations, I'll wait until they choose.... can't wait for the first wedding in the family! Kids grow up fast you know

[laurafromtx]

Is there another relative or friend that lives closer to the venue that you could borrow their kitchen to put the cake together and store the cake for a few hours until the wedding? I've done that a couple of times - I baked the cake layers and made the buttercream, drove to the house, put it together and stuck it a relatively empty fridge until time to deliver. But that was for a simple buttercream design too, I didn't do fondant.

4 hours is a long way to drive with an already stacked cake - you know *somewhere* you'll probably run into some kind of road construction. Depending on how many tiers the cake will have, you could probably get away with stacking the top 2, then transporting the rest singly. I would refrigerate the heck out of all of the tiers, then put them in a big enough box to completely enclose each tier, then wrap that box in a clean trash bag (for more insulation). I agree with Jeri if you can drive early enough where the sun isn't a factor, you'll do just fine.

[Pootchi]

I'm not planning on getting the cake stacked before we leave here. I can borrow a kitchen but not for baking. I just can't go there too many days in advance.... I'll just bake here, and cover the cakes in fondant or BC depends on what they choose, and I'll bring all my stuff to decorate there.
I never thought about traveling early in the morning, or very late at night, when there's not much heat, thanks for the tip!
I just can't wait to see what they choose! here it's not a tradition to have a groom's cake, some people never heard of it. But I'm planning to make my nephew one.... I'll have to talk with his bride-to-be.. He just finished school, and found a job in what he studied for right away. He's the guy that repairs your car when you had an accident... So I thought about making him a big tool box, with tools! that I could make everything here before going there...
And when they were visiting here last weekend, we talked about a chocolate fountain and fruits, but they said that the fruits are so expensive and they weren't able to pay for the fruits for 200+ people, so me and his dad came up with an idea, since at weddings they always do something to raise money for the bride and groom, like a dance or something, we could sell small fruit plates at the beginning, when everyone is starving and just can't wait for the dinner to arrive! Since the father of the groom will be very busy, I'd be in charge of selling the plates, with help of course! I've never seen this at a wedding, chocolate fountain yes but not selling the fruit plates.. it would a first and maybe we'd start a trend? Did I tell you they're both chocolateholics??? guess what? they already told that I'll have to bake a chocolake cake! duh!

[puzzlegut]

On Sunday, I transported an 8" tall cake. It was doweled and had supports. I placed it in the trunk of the car since it was flat and had the cake sitting on a non slip mat and made sure there wasn't anything else in the trunk. And it seemed to transport well. Of course you would always transport the cake with the layers separated and then assemble the cake on site.

[Amanda]

Ok...so I finally read this thread because I have a 5 tier wedding cake due in Sept. I've never been afraid to travel with a stacked cake, but I've just read three cc posts about wedding cakes biting the dust on the way to the venue. Now I'm freakin' out!
When you travel with the tiers separate and assemble on site, do you have problems with the icing cracking?
When I did my last topsy turvy, the top tier went kaput and I had to bake another one. By the time I was able to assemble (the next morning) the stress of assembly on icing that had been well crusted was not pretty. The icing cracked and bubbled in a couple places. If you travel and then assemble surely the icing would be well crusted and the same thing would happen. How do you avoid that?
Thanks guys!