Working with designer Denise Sharp, we took poetic license with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famed love sonnet, quoting it on this cake. Sharp's calligraphed paper garlands -- dotted with ribbon flowers and bows, and adhered with royal icing -- and paper bands encircle fondant tiers that graduate from rosy pink to paler pink on top. The bands are layered over satin ribbon and scalloped cardboard trim wrapped with embroidery floss. A crepe-paper bouquet on a fondant disk is the crown.

Fauchon's monogrammed pink pastry boxes, or boites roses, are interpreted in tinted white chocolate; the cake itself is vanilla sponge with strawberry syrup and mousse. Almond macaroons in raspberry, chocolate, pistachio, and passion fruit are piled on and around the tiers.

A majestic design turns a bit coquettish when it's festooned with macaroons -- the quintessential French treats -- and dressed up in flirty pink.

The focal point of Editorial Director Darcy Miller's reception was the nine-tier wedding cake, modeled, as the ketuba was, after a Parisian bakery box.

This one-of-a-kind cake is ideal for a beach wedding. The lemon-flavored cookie-like tea cakes are tied around buttercream tiers with gold ribbon -- every other one finished with a bow.

The sweet, shimmery details of lustreware plates were typically painted in silver, copper, and pink. The playful motifs encircling the tops of the four tiers of this cake were created with powdered food coloring and a sable paintbrush.

Textiles -- whether found in upholstery or clothing -- are a rich resource for colors, patterns, and textures appropriate for this celebratory treat. Here, the cakemaker used a set of stencils to give royal icing on fondant-covered layers the look of old-world damask. The fresh color palette and the modern way the cake sits flush with the edges of its acrylic cake board shake up the ornate look.

This elegant cake features sugary versions of the defining piece of jewelry from this period -- the cameo. They're unabashedly sentimental, especially when they bear the profiles of you and your fiance and the message "Me & Thee." Pressed into fondant using custom rubber stamps, ringed with shimmering candy pearls, and dangled from real ribbons, these adornments grace the brown-sugar marble cake with edible poetry.

In the charlotte, featherlight ladyfingers surround a filling of raspberry mousse, raspberries, and fraises des bois, or wild strawberries, on soft almond biscuits. More berries and a drizzle of raspberry preserve crown the tiers. The baker's signature ribbon is wrapped around each tier, but a ribbon with the bride and groom's names would be a fitting substitute. Like all the best French pastries, the charlotte is at once light and rich.

Your cake will be pretty in pink with these lovely layers inspired by the equally lovely camelia flower. The tiers were created by laying a custom stencil by Designer Stencils on the fondant; royal icing was then spread over it. Once dry, the reliefs were rubbed with edible pearl dust tinted with gold-green luster dust to make them glitter. M&S Schmalberg created the flowers used in the bouquet topper.