As the summer wedding season gets going, local cake bakers are seeing a trend toward color.

Specifically, they say, ribbons and icing embellishments in the brides' colors - along with interesting cake flavors - are popular for wedding cakes this year.

"A huge trend is color. A lot of people are using their wedding color on cakes with a lot of design," said Crevolyn Wiley, a wedding planner and co-owner of Wonderful Events & Celebrations in Gainesville. "Different flavors on each layer is a huge trend. Cupcakes are a huge trend, using a lot of flowers is always popular but I see that less and less."

Today, using the traditional bride and groom as cake toppers is almost a thing of the past; instead, many couples opt for the silver-plated monograms.

"You see some really interesting things - again, a lot of flowers and sometimes the monogram is very popular on the top or even the monogram on the cake is very pretty," Wiley said.

Felicia Kincaid of The Wedding Cake in Sautee said she has been incorporating the brides' jewelry - which she did for her sister's wedding cake - in her cake designs. She's also painted flowers on fondant.

"She had a broach on the back of her dress and it was gorgeous, so we got one that looked like the one on the back of her dress," Kincaid said. "Probably one of the funkiest trends is just the bolder the colors and the different, not just round and square, but incorporating different shapes."

But fondant, with its malleable texture and ability to create nontraditional shapes, is always popular.

"Fondant has always been really big. ... I do more and more cakes that are nontraditional than traditional. Some people don't want to pay for the fondant but they will do butter cream icing with fondant accents."

Kristen Brousseau, owner of Memorable Creations Cake Shop, said something trendy at her bakery in Gainesville is the different layers and flavors of cake.

"The trend that is so popular right now, that has been a hit ever since I started it, is key lime and strawberry (cake), especially in the summer months," said Brousseau, who said she thinks tiered cakes will remain popular this year. "It's not just classic white cake anymore. The inside, you can pick so much. You can pick from the fruitier side to like Italian cream or butter pecan ... it depends on what your palette is.

Brousseau uses fresh-squeezed key lime juice for her key lime-flavored cake.

"I recommend that the cake to be the flavor rather than the filling because the filling is such a thin layer in between the tiers," she said. "The cake it's just chock full of that flavor."

The cake filling and color of the cake filling was a deciding factor for Angela Conley when she chose her wedding cake for her June wedding.

"I love the thought of cutting into it," said Conley, who has already decided on a red velvet cake. "My colors are red and yellow, so I love the thought of cutting into the cake and it's red. It will be bright white, with the normal butter cream because it smooths a little better than the cream cheese and then she (friend Sharon Pirkle) is just going to decorate as she sees fit. My florist is providing the flowers and they are going to be the red dahlias and yellow roses."

Conley said she got her inspiration for her three-tier square cake from pictures online at The Knot and Publix. Publix also was the inspiration that Kim Sutton used for her May wedding in Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

"I actually ordered it from the Publix down in Fort Walton. And it's a three tier cake, and the top tier and the bottom tier are both pink, kind of a bright pink and then the middle tier is green," said Sutton, who is using white daises as her nontraditional wedding cake topper. "I like more of the fun colors and then the bottom tier has polka dots and the middle tier has horizontal stripes and the top has swirls."

According to Brenda Reid, a Publix spokeswoman, "We customize the color of the icing for any of our wedding cakes. ... Sizes and shapes can be customized to fit the number of guests attending the blessed day."

Sutton said it wasn't too difficult to decide on the design for her cake at Publix with the help and ideas she got from the baker.

"I looked online and they had some sample cakes and then when I called down (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.) and talked with the lady that was the cake decorator she kind of walked me through it and gave me an idea of what all I could do with it," Sutton said. "So I changed around one of the cakes that they had."