Hi to the newbies :wave:
Answering your questions -
1. What would be the must-have tools for someone just starting out? I know smoother was mentioned, anything else? You'll need a palette knife for smoothing the buttercream onto the cake, and I find a scraper really useful for getting a flat finish. The smoother your buttercream, the smoother your fondant will look. The scraper is just a thin piece of plastic, but I find it really useful. I also use it for flat topping cupcakes with buttercream. You'll also need a rolling pin for rolling fondant. I just use a wooden one and it works great, but if you use a wooden one you need to make sure it doesn't have imperfections as these will show on the fondant. I suppose other tools depend on what you're wanting to do. I have a set of Wilton cake tools for modelling fondant, and various cutters. I also have a tonne of sugarflair paste colours and lustre dust/blossom tint.
2.
How long can buttercream be stored in the fridge? I bought some already and the lady told me it could stay for a couple months! Is that true? This, I don't know. I always make buttercream from scratch and use it asap. Are you in the US? I know a lot of US recipes have shortening (crisco) in the buttercream so I guess that would affect how long it can be kept for. It's not something we usually use in the UK.
3.
What would be your tips for someone just starting out and making their first cake? My tip would be to do a practice run if you've never iced a cake before. It is easy, but takes a bit of practice to get a nice smooth finish. My first iced cake was my daughter's birthday cake, and I iced one cake before that. The mistakes I made on it helped me to learn for when I did the real thing.
Peardrop, I can't recommend a book as I've never found one that covered everything I wanted. I learned everything I know from the internet. There are thousands of free tutorials and video tutorials on youtube so you can see techniques in practice. If you're on facebook, check out cake pages on there for inspiration and ideas. I do scour my local library for cake books too, am too tight to buy them
Good luck, looking forward to pics!