This three-tiered zucchini-lime cake with cream cheese frosting is decorated with fresh blooms in soft pink tones.

Mary Carmel Wetherby of The Sugar Woods baked this tiered vanilla-almond confection and covered it with buttercream frosting, fresh herbs, and flowers.

This confection by Cakes by Jane features alternating tiers of almond and cappuccino cake frosted with buttercream and trimmed with gold ribbon and fresh roses.

Fresh flowers and petals can turn a simple cake into something stunning. Just remember: Use only pesticide-free blooms, and flowers should be removed before serving.

Here, a string of soft petals makes romantic use of a classic flower. With sepal removed, the petals of a perfect rose fall open; the flower's grace repeats in a necklace of pale petals -- cream and blushing yellow -- on the cake's first tier.

To make a classic three-tier fondant-covered cake anything but garden variety, we draped small, colorful blooms in an asymmetrical fashion. We used fuchsias on the vine, mini orchids, and orange nerines, but you can sub in your own favorites. Then we gave the cake some height with a simple cake stand (ours is by Astier de Villate). 

Miniature calla lilies are a dramatic counterpoint to crisp, angular tiers. Only the bottom layer of this glamorous structure, clad in white fondant, is meant to be eaten; the remaining tiers are Styrofoam, which keeps the flowers from touching the cake.

Helpful hint if you're recreating this confection: Rubbing the stems between fingers renders them bendable.

The groom of this Real Wedding, a formally trained chef, worked with baker Jennifer Arana of Let Them Eat Cake, in Gualala, California, to make this all-white cake with cream cheese buttercream and plum preserves. He added coral posies that matched the wedding palette.

No special talent is needed to create this luscious-looking confection -- just swirls of fluffy seven-minute icing applied to a snow-white cake. Freshly shaved coconut falls where it may, while tiny mums adorn the cake and sweet peas and ranunculuses dress the table.

For a wedding in Monroe, Georgia, an over-sized coral peony topped this couple's white-cake and coconut-cream confection.

This airy and moist vanilla sponge cake has a thin layer of apricot jam inside and is covered with buttercream; piped dots and fresh cattleyas lend elegance. The cake board was cut from teak (the cake itself rests on a cardboard layer).

The lace is edible on this showstopping dessert, but not the blooms. It's decked out in thin texturized fondant, and a few bright red roses. Inside, a white-chocolate cake bathed in Limoncello is complemented by dark-chocolate ganache filling.

A cluster of peonies serves as the topper for this cake, and the tiers are draped in rolled ivory fondant and detailed with jewel-like swags and dots piped in royal icing. Fresh peonies, begonias, and fuchsia decorate the corners. Inside, the cake is a rich medley of flavors: Layers of white Tahitian vanilla-bean cake have rose petals baked right in them; the filling combines strawberries with a ganache made of white chocolate, pink Champagne, and rose water.

Alexis Baking Company made a devil's food cake accented with soft peach flowers and ivory rose petals for this real wedding in Sonoma.

A two-tier confection in this desintation wedding's signature hues was topped with fresh and fragrant garden roses.

A pristine cake rises from a symphony of fringed nerines and primula in pink, tiny yellow kalanchoe, and sweet peas. The cake base rests within a ring of floral foam; space in between keeps the flowers from touching the icing.

To show off spring's most prized flower, we cloaked three dome-shaped cakes in pink fondant and topped it with a smattering of real cherry blossoms, some of which have been coated with sugar.

Fresh flowers made this four-tiered vanilla, Italian-meringue, buttercream cake suitable for an elegant outdoor reception.

Garden roses were tucked between the tiers of this vanilla bean cake adorned with buttercream piped on in a basket-weave pattern.

Four buttercream cubes topped with brilliant parrot tulips glow with color; every cluster picks up a hue from the one next to it. To prevent marring the soft icing, the blooms are arranged on clear acetate sheets.

Fresh roses, hydrangeas, and gardenias were tucked in a gold urn to create a unique cake topper for this red velvet wedding cake.

At an outdoor fete in Martha's Vineyard, fresh blooms and vines adorned the chocolate cake covered honey-fudge icing by Black Dog Bakery.

Pluck a few petals from the flowers your using to decorate your cake and you've got more stunning cake swag. Perfect Endings made this four-tier chocolate cake topped with ranunculus and sprinkled with flower petals.

This creation is tropical through and through: Hibiscus flowers, lychees, coconut, mini pineapple and bananas, and tamarillo crown this yellow-cake brushed with rum syrup and filled with passion fruit curd and rum-and-vanilla-bean buttercream.

On this cake, roses are arranged between buttercream tiers piped in a basket-weave pattern to resemble wicker -- what could be better for a summer garden wedding? Atop the cake, a ceramic pot (with no hole in the bottom) is overflowing with roses anchored in floral foam.

This four-tier buttercream-covered cake was made by Creative Cakes and featured a wrap of calla lilies and berries. It was served on an antique bronzed cake platter.

Voluptuous fresh cattleya orchids spill over this white fondant-covered cake. 

Each tier in this cake is frosted with ivory buttercream and alternated with several types of roses, such as Sabara, shaped in tiers of the same height.

This fondant-covered cake decorated with green, purple, and cream hydrangeas is made of three graduated square tiers.

This four-tier cake covered in pink fondant celebrates the beauty of carnations. Hundreds of them blanket the simple wooden box it rests on, an idea that works well with carnations because they are so affordable.

A pristine white cake, piped with tiny beads around each tier, is sprinkled with red rose petals.

This wedding cake, with chocolate and vanilla layers and raspberry filling, has dahlias galore.

Skip labor-intensive iced decorations and ask for a simpler style, then dress it up with ribbon and fresh flowers. Here, we chose a few elegant light pink roses.

This two-tier vanilla cake, covered with buttercream frosting and garden roses, sat on an antique pedestal at this Real Wedding in Marfa, Texas. It was framed by vases of pincushion proteas and hydrangeas.

This traditional tiered confection covered with pale-green fondant has fresh hydrangeas between the layers (each cake tier is topped with clear acetate so flowers don't touch the icing).

The classic layer cake is dressed up with vibrant geraniums secured in floral foam in trays around the tiers for an informal wedding. Use your favorite devil's food cake recipe combined with our favorite old-fashioned chocolate frosting for this delicious cake. The fanciful frosting playfully echoes the frills of the edges of the flowers. 

Setting vivid (and long-lasting) orchids against spring-green fondant-covered tiers results in a look that's fresh and utterly modern. There are hundreds of orchids to choose from; we used (from left) cattleya, dendrobium, lady's slipper, and 'Japhet' cattleya.

A tisket, a tasket, a cake that's just fantastic. Chamomile, jasmine, aster, roses, scented geranium, and wax flowers dress up this classic cake topped with piped buttercream in a basket-weave pattern. White hyacinth forms the wreath (hyacinth is not food-safe, so it's used only in the topper, which sits on a foam disk to keep it away from the cake). A particularly sweet choice for a garden wedding, this cake definitely weaves a spell.

This cake seems to rise from a garden of tulips. The stems are secured in water-filled tubes tucked into a fondant-covered Styrofoam tier.

Miniature posies of cosmos and fondant lamb's ears are tied with delicate satin ribbon and perch atop shimmering carpets of sanding sugar on this gorgeous cake. The curves of the flowers' petals are echoed in the contours of each chocolate-covered tier, made by using petal-shaped cake pans; a slender satin ribbon is taped to the cake board to disguise its edge.

The beauty of this cake is punctuated by the purity and simplicity of one giant flawless rose perched on the top. The white tiers are decorated with confectionary bands inspired by the lace of a bridal gown.