what to expect at your cake smash / first birthday session

 
 

Before session

To book your session, you can use my online booking calendar to select the date and time that works for you. Cake smash / first birthday sessions are done weekday mornings and some weekends throughout the month. You can find my online calendar here - https://www.jessicastringerphotography.com/book-now

While booking your session, please let me know in the notes what your hope for the cake smash is. We can do anything from super simple, to propy and elaborate. PLEASE KNOW I do need atleast a 2 week headsup on your theme for your cake smash so if I need to buy any special decorations for your session, i can. Please be very specific on what your looking for as far as colors, etc. It also helps to email me a photo of you childs cake smash outfit so I can try my best to match colors to that.

At the session

Woohoo! Here comes the fun. The day of the session, PLEASE arrive on time. It is very important that you do not show up super early or super late, as I generally have sessions booked back to back. If you arrive late, you session will still end within the hour that the time was booked for.

Showing up to the session and having your child dressed and ready to go is ideal, but I totally understand that babies drool etc and if you need to dress them when you arrive, that is fine too. If you are interested in doing family photos, we will do those first! We can also do a few sibling photos during the session, and those will be done right after family photos. After family/sibling photos are complete, you can either change your kiddos outfit or we can get a few of them in the outfit they are wearing. After this, you are welcome to change your babies outfit to get some simple/traditional photos before the cake smash. I generally love to use my bed for these photos, as well as my wood backdrops. We can even incorporate some fun backdrops during this as well and you are more than welcome to look around through my props and pull out anything you like. I typically have some fun stuff already set up to make the transition seamless and maximize our session time.

After the second outfit, you are welcome to either change your baby one more time and get a few more traditional poses before the cake smash, or we can move on to the cake smash outfit. If you decide to do the cake smash outift, we will get some fun photos of your baby in front of the cake smash outfit before pulling out the cake! After we have completed the traditional photos, we will move on to the cake smash. I generally spend the first 40 minutes of the session doing tradition photos, and the last 20 minutes of the session are for the cake smash fun.

For the cake smash, we will have the cake, backdrop and props all set up and ready to go, next we will set down your baby and either ease them into the cake, or let them do their own thing and smash/throw cake around haha! Some babies need a few minutes to realize what they’re doing, other babies dive right in. Either way we will get some adorable photos. Babies typically have fun playing in the cake for about 10-15 minutes and then comes the clean up. I always have wipes, but please bring along some too as well as a towel to lay your baby on while cleaning up the cakey frosting on them! I always take care of cleaning up the set up, cake on the floor so there is no need for you to worry about anything else other than cleaning up your baby. You can except your images in a digital downloadable online gallery in 3-4 weeks from the session date. I also offer the option of a quick turn around time, if you need the photos sooner, and this can be purchased and your photos will be edited within 48 hours of the session.

Tips for the session

  1. A super helpful tip is to introduce your baby to cake prior to the cake smash session. This way your baby is familiar with cake and it isn’t such a shock. Generally, this makes for the cake smash session to go much smoother than if they haven’t had cake or sweets before.

  2. Please bring along wipes to clean up your baby after the session, but if you forget wipes I always have some extra on standby!

  3. Please please please do not bring a fondant cake! These do not smash! A perfect cake smash cake is made of icing and not fondant, and please leave the cake out of the fridge for an hour or two prior to the session to make for the perfect smashing consistency!

  4. Please pick a cake that matches your theme. I will make a beautiful set up for your childs cake smash photos, so bringing along a cake that matches is definitely important! ;)

  5. Bring along your babies favorite snack. If they need some coaxing for the cake, or they are hesitant to touch it, we will use the snacks to help them ease into it.

  6. Schedule around your babies schedule, try hard to not schedule the photo session for the middle of nap time… this typically doesn’t go well.

If you have any additional questions, please don’t ever hesitate to email me!

Need some inspiration for the cake smash theme? Check out my pintrest board of cake smashes I have done. https://www.pinterest.com/jstringerphoto/one-year-old-cake-smash-sessions/