I'm making a concerted effort this fall/winter to practice techniques and prepare dummy cakes for my portfolio in order to build up my wedding cake business for next summer.

I'm curious where other cake designers find what's trending for 2014 weddings. I'm thinking bridal magazines, websites, pintrest, fashion magazines. Any other ideas? Any sources you like better than others?

I guess a related question would be how much do you find your customers follow trends or are you doing similar designs that you did 5 years ago?

APersonally, I avoid trends as much as possible. I ask people for their ideas, and inspiration as far as what the rest of their wedding looks like (invites, reception decorations, dresses, flower bouquets, jewelry, personal interests) and design from there. Make something you like that shows off your strengths and style, not what is trending on Pinterest. ;-)

As it's for 2014 dummies, I would definitely check what's trending on pinterest. Also, the popular wedding blogs (style me pretty, ruffled, wedding chicks) and generally things that you like.

I wouldn't bother with bridal magazines, they're like a year behind any sort of trends anyway. I think brides sort of follow trends, it's just that whatever is popular they tend to see more of, and so are drawn to them. Vintage is still ridiculously popular here, as well as naked cakes (which were big in the summer). Metallic cakes are starting to gain a bit of momentum here as well.

If you want to see what's coming up look at the new bridal gown runway shows, since that's what the brides will be wearing in a year. This year and next year is all about lace, it's everywhere.

But I find that the cakes that I do are the most interesting when I just do something that I like. I try to keep what the brides are looking at in mind, but I don't worry about trends so much...The brides in my area are about 5 years behind the rest of the country trend-wise.