We have a bride who is asking for some of these piped tiers on her wedding cake. Does anyone know how this cake was made - a pattern embossed into the icing before embossing, freehand, etc? 

Thanks!

That is a Lambreth method design.  Done mostly freehand.  There are  Presses/embossers availavle that can be used for the inverted "C" shape on the bottom tier and to give you more even scollops to follow for the middle & top tiers.....the rest is totally freehand.  Google "Lambeth  Wedding cakes" to see many, many similar and much more detailed designs.

piped and overpiped over and over to get that depth

and some tiers are sculpted

I've got a book that explains the basics of how to do this sort of thing and includes some patterns. By Kate Venter, but I can't remember which specific one.