With little more than flour and sugar, your wedding cake is perfectly capable of stealing the show. Here are some ideas for creating a cake that expresses your personality—and impresses your guests.

Half of Pereira’s couples request a traditional cake. For those who prefer something outrageous and never-before-seen, Pereira lets her creativity run wild. One cake resembled a Moroccan vase, in deep blues and greens, strewn with gold tassels. Her three-dimensional cathedral cake featured three edible towers, lit from inside.

“I’m seeing bold colors and unique themes,” says Steven Barile, otherwise known as the Pastry Prince in Egg Harbor (609-965-9596; thepastryprince.com). “Today’s brides want to make a statement.” Barile created a wedding-bell cake for one wedding that was dramatically suspended above the ceremony, then lowered for the reception. For a beach wedding, he created a cake topped with an actual bowl full of goldfish.

Krista Walker, owner of Pretty Sweet Bakery in Haddonfield (856-429-0063; prettysweetbakery.com), sees a resurgence of impressively sized white cakes embellished to match your gown or bouquet. For something decadently different, she offers a heart-shaped flourless chocolate cake, covered with ganache and strawberries.

“I never say no to a cake idea; there’s always a way to do it,” says Buddy Valastro of Carlo’s City Hall Bake Shop in Hoboken (201-659-3671; carlosbakery.com), voted “Best Cake in America” by the Today show. “Today’s brides are braver, more apt to want a whimsical cake,” he says. His famous three-tier suitcase cake is a favorite for world travelers.

Bigger is nearly always better. Some brides add extra layers—more than their guests could ever eat—simply to up the “wow factor.” “Five or six tiers are usually enough, but I can build it as big as you want,” says Valastro.

So if wedding cakes are art, doesn’t it hurt to see people eating them? “I bake up to forty wedding cakes a weekend, so I got over that years ago,” Valastro tells us. “A cake that took twenty hours to create can be carved into pieces in twenty minutes. I’d rather not look,” Pereira admits. Walker adds, “I want them to dig in; that’s the best part!”