Wedding cake trial: Day 2

To begin today's process I made the two fillings I needed to have made- pineapple and lemon curd. I realize now that I didn't take photos of them. Nuts. Take my word on it- they were gorgeous and delicious. Many of you will taste the fillings in a few months anyways.
Next I made the frosting.
How in GOD'S name did I do this before my kitchenaid? Oh, yes, I remember now. I must have killed at least two hand mixers. Four pounds of powdered sugar later the buttercream was finished.
Then I needed to make the cakes all level and the same size. Behold on of my favorite baking tools and one of the key tools of the trade:
It's a saw. A cake saw. Yeah, it's awesome, you don't have to tell me, I'm aware. Cutting off all the tops of the cake made lots of scraps, which we threw away. Honesty- we had enough cake.
First I frosted all of the tiers with a thin layer of buttercream just to get the crumbs contained. My thinking behind this was that I would later add another layer and then press on the coconut. More on this later...
Next I stacked the tiers. No pictures of this process as it was the one thing I had never done before so I was concentrating. But here is the finished product:

Next I used this little dude, my "caulking gun" if you will.I used this to fill in all the spaces where the cardboard was, as well as any problem areas. Then I used my trusty spatula to add another layer, which was harder than I anticipated.
Finally, I added the coconut. I used the "good" stuff (read: namebrand) on the outside as it's a bit more moist than store brand. It turned out soft looking and lovely, as I anticipated.
It was perfect. The dining room table was not.
That was after picking up a bit, too.
So, things I learned this time.
1.) Next time I'm going to just do a thick crumb layer and press the coconut on immediately. I think this will prevent the cake from looking lumpy because it is very hard to get it smooth right off the bat. Plus, then when you take the tiers apart there will be coconut on each tier's top.
2.) the bottom tier is heavy.
3.) Related to number two: I need a more serious off-set spatula. You're supposed to use it to set the cake down, but mine was really flimsy which resulted in fingerprints in the cake. Oh well.
4.) This was a lot of work, I'm really looking forward to having my sister help me.
All in all- not bad. I'm feeling pretty confident. It will look much better with some fresh flowers or berries on it or something. Yay for me! Now to pawn off the leftovers onto everyone!