I love wedding cake. I'm normally more of a salt person, but there's something about a thick slice of cake topped with a rich but fluffy layer of buttercream that makes me weak in the tastebuds. So I always get excited for the magazine's Desserts feature and photo shoot--and this issue was no exception.

The inspiration for the Desserts feature in our current winter/spring 2012 issue--photographed by Barrett Doran at The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, and styled by Events By LMG--was classic white wedding cakes. We wanted to spotlight pretty, elegant, and delicate white-on-white wedding cakes and desserts, and incorporate soft shades of raspberry, apricot, blackberry, and dove gray through a few well-chosen props like flowers, favors, and linens.

We spotlighted four dreamy white wedding cakes: an incredible eight-tier royal icing cake created by Jeffrey de Leon, executive pastry chef at The Grand America Hotel; a beautiful buttercream cake decorated with buttercream ruffles and roses by Julie Hill of Layers Cake; a trio of fondant cakes featuring sugar brooches and gum paste flowers by Janell Brown of One Sweet Slice; and a tiered, texture-rich coconut cake covered in snow-like coconut flakes by Therese Roper of Carlucci's Bakery.

We also included French macarons from The Grand America's La Bonne Vie, incredibly addictive coconut cake bites, and soft, frosted sugar cookies from The Sweet Tooth Fairy in the sweet spread.

Mara Marian-Harwood of Events By LMG helped us bring the feature's inspiration board to life. She worked with Studio Stems to create feminine, textural floral arrangements, Pink Piggy Design to craft cute, custom favors and printed materials, and Distinctive Inscriptions Calligraphy to hand-letter signage for the cake tables. She sourced luxe table linens from Wildflower Linen and mix-and-match cake plates from Macy's.

Most of the cakes we photograph are actually made of Styrofoam and frosted, but occasionally we have a cake--or slices of cake, as you can see above--that is the real deal, and my art director Samantha and I go on a sugar binge--and later, a sugar crash--sampling all the tasty morsels. The things you gotta do in the name of research...

A big thank you to Events By LMG, The Grand America Hotel, Layers Cake, One Sweet Slice, The Sweet Tooth Fairy, Studio Stems, Pink Piggy Design, Distinctive Inscriptions Calligraphy, Macy's, and Wildflower Linen for making our Desserts photo shoot and feature one sweet spread!

{All images by Barrett Doran from the winter/spring 2012 issue of Salt Lake/Park City Bride & Groom magazine}