Brenda Maher and her sister, Mary, are the Cakegirls.

I started working with cakes just to make money for college. I never thought it would amount to anything — let alone a career or a reality show! My sister Mary is the most exceptional cake decorator I've ever met: She lives, thinks and breathes cakes.

I don't have any formal training. I learned the basics from the Home Bakery and my sister and then added my own twist. To make our business "official", we opened a separate bank account specifically for the money we received from orders. We eventually found a space, but both had to keep our jobs in order to keep the business running while paying our personal bills. Only after two years were Mary and I able to quit our "real" jobs and do Cakegirls full time.

There seems to be a perception that wedding cakes have to be huge. The larger the cake the more expensive it becomes. We often advise clients to choose more interesting, dramatic designs, but only using half of their servings while the rest are in sheet cakes. This way your guests still notice the cake with a more dramatic design, but half the servings are in the lower cost sheet cakes.

I think one step non-professional people tend to miss is not letting their crumb coated cake sit in the refrigerator before they complete the final coat or fondant layer. This step allows the cake to harden which makes it much easier to ice or fondant.