Cake Smash Photoshoot Tips

Amy Doak Photography strives to give our clients the very best experience when it comes to capturing your memories of you and your family. Celebrating a huge milestone, such as your little one turning the big 0-1, should be fun, exciting and memorable. Amy Doak Photography offers cake smash sessions, which are done in our studio. 

Our Cake-smash sessions include a beautifully hand-crafted cake, custom-selected décor to match your desired theme, a mini-family session, and a 3-part cake-smash/bubble-cleanup session.

Time of day

• Cake smashes should be planned for the time of day when baby is the happiest. Only you will know when that tends to be. The studio will coordinate with you on when this time of day works best for your little one and family.

Decor and Theme

• Let us know what type of décor and solid background color you’d like. It can take several weeks for specific colors if we don’t already have them in stock.

• It is great to incorporate some decorations from the first birthday party (such as a crafty banner). We have discovered that most of our clients follow the “less is more” philosophy.

Outfits

• Most babies simply wear a diaper cover (like bloomers), a tutu or cloth diaper for the cake smash. Some parents prefer to do the cake smash with the baby fully clothed instead of in a diaper, and this is totally fine with us. Just be aware that the clothing worn during the shoot MAY potentially be ruined by the icing coloring (trust me I found out the hard way). 
  
• My client closet does entail some cute outfits for baby girls. For boys, I do have an array of suspenders and bowties in the studio that can be used for the cake smash. I highly suggest searching amazon or Etsy for a more customized set.

• Please bring a clean change of clothes that baby can go home in after the cake smash session.

How to get get messy

• Let your baby have cake at least 2 times in the weeks leading up to the cake smash session. This way they will be familiar with cake enough to move past the exploration phase and they can get excited about it like the rest of us! I like to suggest getting a cupcake and letting your little one get familiar with the texture and taste of something as sweet as a cake. Or even whipped cream or some frosting is a great way to help your little one get used to having something sticky on their hands.

Alternatives to cake

• If cake isn’t your littles one’s thing, you can also get really creative with this milestone.  Donuts, tacos, etc. Anything that your little would enjoy eating or getting messy with! It’s more about them experience of them getting into their smashing vs what they are actually smashing.  Don’t limit your ideas to just cake! Take a look at my Pinterest Board for some awesome cake smash alternatives!

Outdoor vs Indoor

We can have the cake smash outdoors if you really want to! Outdoor cake smashes are a great way to take advantage of the beautiful summers that we have here in Buffalo and to maximize those golden hour vibes.

However, there are many things to consider about the possibility of an outdoor cake smash: The session must be scheduled according to the best natural lighting (usually around sunset), which may not coincide with your baby’s naptime. So planning naptimes are essential! We also have to take account for the weather on that day and having a rain check date is a must. Outdoor cake smashes have minimal props! With all the gorgeous scenery of the outdoors, props are mostly unnecessary. The bathtub splash session is still performed afterwards, with everything being toted in my giant rolling wagon 🙂

A few additional tips

• Have a few dry snacks and some water on-hand in case your baby gets thirsty. Cake smashing is hard work!

• Keep a spoon handy within arms-reach in case we need to give your baby a little “help” smashing into the cake.

• Bring a small plastic toy (that can easily be cleaned) handy to give your baby to grab their attention and keep them entertained.

• Make a playlist ready to go on your phone that your baby loves to jam out to! This will help with making your little one feel like they’re having fun and forget that the camera is even there!

A cake smash session can be best described as a beautiful fun mess! If you’re interested in a cake-smash photoshoot with your little one, let’s talk! I’m also happy to share my Pinterest page that has a lot of well-thought-out “pins” on the subject. Check them out below!

I hope you found some of these tips and tricks useful to make the most success out of your cake smash session! I hope to share this day with you! To find out more information on how to book a milestone cake smash session, please contact our studio today!

Happy Cake Smashing!