Amazing Wedding Cakes - Season 3

The Chicago bakery produces one of their signature gravity-defying cakes, when Brenda and Nicole create a bridal shower cake for a tea party. This cake design is three beautiful teacups stacked one on top of another, topsy-turvy style. Working the curved edges proves to the challenging, but there's no cake problem the Cake Girls can't solve. Chris at Christopher Garren's Cakes meets with a couple who wants a cake that will represent the "Steam Punk" motif of their wedding. "Steam Punk"? What is that?? As Chris finds out, it's a modern blending of the romantic costumes from the Victorian era with the science fiction of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, all powered by steam. If anyone can take an intricate, outlandish concept and turn it into a cake, it's Chris and his team. LA's Merci Beaucoup bakery gets an order for a wedding cake that plays right into Marc's strengths. The couple wants color, fun, and butter cream. They also share a love of tattoo art. Marc, being the artist that he is, decides to push the design to include intricate airbrush work, and "koi" fish swimming on the layers. It's just a typical day at Merci Beaucoup.

The CakeGirls get an order for a "Pantry Shower" cake from a bride whose family fetes the newlyweds with a party that will fill their pantry. The idea is to give the couple all the ingredients they'll need for the recipe for a great marriage. So the sisters create a wonderful design that aims to defy the law of gravity...but will the execution of the cake go according to their plan? Christopher Garren's Cakes gets an order to create a wedding cake inspired by the movie "Edward Scissorhands". It's a busy week for Chris, so he assigns his intern Kristen to take the lead on the cake. This is a huge deal for Kristen, but she needn't worry too much, she'll have plenty of help from Chris and Lindsey. And maybe a little teasing too. Lauri and the ladies of Cake Alchemy are tasked with creating a cake that pulls inspiration from the modern chandeliers at the reception site. Yet Lauri being Lauri, she not only wants to include elaborate sugar work and life-like flowers made of gum paste, but she wants to suspend the tiers on a support system that includes a lighting mechanism. What could go wrong?

Christopher Garren's Cakes meets with a couple who wants a wedding cake inspired by the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The cake is black and white, with Tiffany blue accents, and has to feed 275 people. To make matters more complicated, there are tons of ribbons that surround the tiers and these must be perfectly even. This is a big, complex cake, and the tensions run high as Chris is watching everyone to make sure it's up to his standards. Mary, one of the owners of CakeGirls, is in heaven when she receives an order for an ultra modern wedding cake. This is her opportunity to test a technique that she's been dying to do: cover a tier with two layers of contrasting colored fondant, then cut a design out of the top layer so the bottom layer is exposed. Sounds easy. What could go wrong? New York City's "Cake Alchemy" has just received an order for a white wedding cake adorned with orchids. But will that be enough of a challenge for Lauri and her team? Lauri ups the design with a chandelier stencil and pearls, to a wonderful effect.

LA's Merci Beaucoup Cakes gets an order to make an unusual Pirate Ship wedding cake, for a couple who got engaged in the Caribbean. Marc can't wait to create all the fantastic details for the ship made out of butter cream. There's just one small hurdle. Marc wants to make the sails out of gum paste, and he's never done this before. Will it be smooth sailing, or a ship wreck? Christopher Garren's Cakes is asked to create a bridal shower cake that will remind the bride and her girlfriends about when they used to hang out together at a local diner. So the All-American design includes a milk shake, a chocolate cake slice, and a giant cupcake. And since this is a Christopher Garren cake, all these elements will be stacked on top of one another, and look just like the real thing, only larger. But surprisingly, in the end, it's the lowly cupcake wrapper that causes the most problems.... Chicago's CakeGirls owners Mary and Brenda think it's time for Ben to take on more challenges. That's why he's going to create this Magnolia wedding cake from start to finish. We know Ben's great at the fundamentals. What's going to happen when he's asked to be more artistic? Will he conquer the airbrush? Or will it conquer him?

The mother of the groom would like Chicago's CakeGirls to create an offbeat wedding cake for an offbeat wedding, where the reception will be a picnic. This cake will have a red-and-white checkerboard pattern, blades of grass, ants, and the topper is a pig roasting on a spit. LA's "Merci Beaucoup Cakes" bakery meets with a bride who wants to incorporate the southern tradition of a groom's cake into their reception. Her husband-to-be is clueless as to what a groom's cake is. But since it's HIS cake, and his choice, he wants a cheesecake. And he wants it to look like: a wheel of cheese. This sounds like a perfect match for Reva's and Marc's talents. Christopher Garren's Cakes gets an order for a wedding cake for a bride and groom who want bold colors, inverted tiers with a quilted pattern, and orchids. Chris follows the game plan…up to a point. As the design evolves, he realizes yellow calla lilies will be much better for the overall look than the white orchids requested by the bride. Guess who wins this battle of the flowers…

The CakeGirls have just gotten an order for a groom's cake that must replicate the groom's vintage Mustang muscle car. Mary is thrilled, but not as much as Ben, who finally gets to work on a more masculine cake. Plus, it's Ben's first time sculpting a car. Cake Alchemy receives an order for an incredibly tall, bejeweled wedding cake. The bride makes it known she wants bling, flowers, and something to "pop". Lauri and her crew are ready to raise the bar. Jewel-studded separators -- Check. Three-pound sapphire made of sugar -- Check. Giant sugar sapphire popping out of the top of the cake? Is that even possible?? At Christopher Garren's Cakes, Chris designs a wedding cake that is elegant, feminine, and understated (or as understated as Chris can be). Navy blue and white are the colors for the wedding, and the design elements include intricate layers of pleating as well as a draped fabric effect with a blue-stenciled pattern on the edge. As Chris puts it, "after 9 years, we finally did a ‘girly' cake!"

The Chicago sisters receive a challenge they can't refuse -- to create a bobble head groom's cake. The groom is a huge football fan and has his heart set on seeing this cake at his reception. Can Mary design a structure that will bobble, but not fall? She comes up with a game plan, but the pressure is on. She has just one chance to line up the cake-filled helmet and send it through the uprights.... At Merci Beaucoup Cakes, Reva creates a cake concept which marries the opposing masculine and feminine design requests from her bride and groom. So it's black & white stripes for the groom (named Taylor), and drapery and pink roses for the bride. Marc's background in fashion design comes in handy when it comes to making fondant "drape", now if only they can get the color right.... Cake Alchemy has an order for a wedding cake with a custom stencil scroll pattern, and gum paste flowers. But it's summer in the city and Manhattan is in the middle of a heat wave. Will the fondant wilt before Lauri can even get it on the cake? And if they can get the fondant to stay, will the steamy temps turn their stencil designs into melty rivers of purple icing? On an all-white cake, that would spell disaster!

Christopher Garren's Cakes is asked to incorporate a fun, beach motif into a wedding cake. The clients trust Chris implicitly, and give him full creative license on the project. The only item they give him for design inspiration is a gift bag, which appealed to them because of its colors, clean lines, and flowers. To bring his vision to fruition, Chris wants to try out some new techniques. But will the learning curve for these new skills throw Chris and his team off their schedule? Between the new techniques and the complicated detail work, will they miss their deadline? Reva at Merci Beaucoup Cakes designs a large wedding cake that incorporates the "Masquerade" theme of the couple's wedding. The colors are bold -- black, white, and red. Reva also wants to incorporate a "collar" around two of the layers, and plans to construct the collars out of "pastillage." "Pastillage" is a sugar-based dough which dries quickly into rigid, decorative forms that are often quite fragile. But neither she or Marc are proficient at working with "pastillage", so will they succeed in executing her design? Lauri of Cake Alchemy has earned a reputation for making wedding cakes that are art pieces. Her client is a bride who has an unusual request: she wants to surprise her husband-to-be with a groom's cake inspired by a piece of furniture! But it's not just any piece of furniture, it's a whimsical and eye-catching footstool created by one of the groom's favorite design companies, MacKenzie-Childs. Lauri and her team are excited to re-create this unique piece of art in cake.

Halloween weekend in Los Angeles can only mean one thing—the Day of the Dead. Marc and Reva get an order to do a wedding cake based on the holiday. Marc needs some inspiration, so the Merci Beaucoup team takes a road trip to the Olvera Street marketplace, to drink in the colors and culture of LA's Mexican heritage. Could this be one of Marc's greatest creations? The CakeGirls get an order for a champagne wedding cake: actually, one large cake depicting a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, with 15 smaller replicas for the wedding party. Sounds like a lot of work, but then Mary gets the clever idea to fill the bottle (made of sugar) with actual champagne. Now we're talking challenge! Especially for Ben, who has to deliver the cakes to the venue, while hoping that the champagne bubbles won't make the sugar bottle disintegrate! Cake Alchemy owner Lauri is making an engagement cake for one of her favorite people in the world: her loyal and beloved employee, Stephanie. The cake (and engagement party) will be a surprise, so Lauri keeps Stephanie distracted by having her work on this mysterious client's cake. Will Lauri's team be able to keep their secret, while crafting this unusual, inverted cake for their colleague?

LA's Merci Beaucoup bakery gets an order for a 40th Wedding Anniversary cake. The clients are two sisters, the daughters of the anniversary couple, who want Reva to create a cake that reflects the artistic life their parents have created for them. The party is going to be inspired by Alice in Wonderland, so the cake should reflect that as well. Reva gets carte blanche to go as far as she wants with the design...and she delivers with her "Through the Looking Glass" creation. The CakeGirls in Chicago get an order from a bride and groom who want clean lines and minimal decoration. Brenda and Mary decide to work on this elegant, 5-tiered cake together. Brenda wants to practice her decoration skills, so she goes to work on the elaborate stencil applications. Mary's fine with that, because she'll be watching Brenda's every move. Brenda doesn't get it right at first, but eventually gets in a groove, and her ivory stencils on chocolate fondant make the cake both modern and elegant. After this tall cake is decorated and then stacked, the finishing touch must be added: a monogram on the top layer. In order to carry out this last bit of decoration, Mary pulls off the rare, one-handed monogram application (with double-tip change) while perched on a ladder -- not for the faint of heart. It's no secret that Lauri at Cake Alchemy loves to make skeletons. So when a couple comes in and orders a skeleton bride and groom for the top of their cake, Lauri is in her element. But Lauri won't be satisfied with just two skeletons, she wants a whole tier of festive skulls for this New York couple's Halloween wedding.

A couple seeks out Christopher Garren's Cakes to create a non-traditional wedding cake. In fact, they say they don't want "their mother's wedding cake". The couple specifically wants to incorporate Lotus flowers (because they reconnected at LA's Lotus Festival after first meeting in New York City), henna designs, and lots of color. Chris is overjoyed because he gets to use the airbrush, create appliqués and detailed mosaics, and sculpt the layers into hourglass shapes. Chris gets the whole team involved in crafting the elaborate decorations, with fingers crossed that when all the parts come together, it will be a glorious yet cohesive cake design. Reva at Merci Beaucoup Cakes designs a wedding cake with dramatic draping effects in fondant, as a nod to the bride's interest in acting. There is also the tedious project of cutting out dozens of tiny tassels to trim the "fabric" draping. Thank goodness Marc has a background in the fashion industry, because he's definitely going to have to help with this one.... At Cake Alchemy, Lauri meets with a client who only has one request for her wedding cake, and that's to incorporate the groom's last name, Swan, into the design. Sounds relatively simple, except Lauri always has to raise the bar: why make just one cake when you can make EIGHTY little ones instead? The Cake Alchemy team swings into assembly-line mode to crank out dozens of individual wedding cakes, each with a poured sugar swan on top.

Chris at Christopher Garren's Cakes meets with a woman who wants to wear her grandmother's wedding dress at her ceremony. The bride-to-be wants her cake design to reflect the vintage/antique feel of her wedding, and to also evoke her grandmother's dress. Chris gets inspired by other elements of the wedding, including the graceful arches in the courtyard of the venue, and a harlequin floor pattern in the main foyer. His final design includes lace detail from the grandmother's dress fabric, flowers like the ones in her bouquet, and uses a soft, romantic palette. The sheer amount of detail will be the biggest challenge to the bakery team, but the end result will be an old-world masterpiece. Lauri at Cake Alchemy meets with a couple who wants a modern wedding cake. Lauri suggests that to make this cake truly unique, they should deconstruct the cake into individual tiers, and place them side-by-side, rather than stacking the tiers. Each tier will be displayed atop its own vase, with the vases being of varying heights, and placed next to each other. The vases will contain live "Vanda" orchids (the couple's wedding flower), and Lauri will create the same orchids in sugar to decorate the cakes. The couple loves the idea, and Lauri loves that she gets to present a cake in this unconventional way. Reva at Merci Beaucoup Cakes meets with a couple who wants to pay homage to their South Asian heritage. They decide to go with a Bollywood theme for their wedding cake, and using that inspiration, Marc creates an incredibly colorful and over-the-top design. Each layer of the cake is decorated like a piece of exotic fabric, covered with intricate "embroidery" that's piped on by Marc and gets gilded with edible gold dust. There's also a tier covered with tiny edible sequins made by Reva, who even recruits Mic for the tedious task of punching out hundreds of tiny circles. The end result -- although incredibly time-consuming - perfectly captures the energy and vibrancy of Bollywood.