You’ve had a baby, now they are turning a year old, what do you do to celebrate this? Oh yes! Cake Smash!
Off to Pinterest you go to look for adorable ideas. Let me share a few cake smash stories with you from previous sessions and tell you how they went, and show off some awesome would be Pinterest fails!
It’s common, really… But, here is a little secret not all kids enjoy smashing their cakes. I know, so lets have the shock wear off and I’ll share a few tips that I think may help you get the cake smash photos of your little one that should make anyone on Pinterest a little jealous!
First, if your child doesn’t like to be dirty, chances are they will not readily enjoy having icing all over them. Have you tried walking the baby around in the grass only to find out they hate having their feet in the grass, or mud, or anything wet or gooey? Yep not going to turn over a new leaf and love their cake smash!
For example, Sweet little Caroline… Mom got this beautiful cake covered in pretty light pink flowers, a headband, tutu, pearls… Everything was set perfectly, right! Except the fact that Caroline wasn’t a big fan of being dirty, or sitting in the grass… this was not a happy baby!
We were never fully able to turn that frown upside down but we did get usable photos of baby, with icing and no tears.
However, from the time the cake was put down in front of her till we decided it was pure torture for her and ended the session the majority of the cake smashing went like this….
She didn’t like being dirty, she didn’t want the cake, she just wasn’t having it. I felt awful for mom! See mom had seen pins of a baby in a basket with balloons that, the pretty cake smash, the idea for the outfits etc etc and none of it really came together for this session. It happens but doesn’t make it easier.
Another tip is if your baby isn’t used to having cake, or sweets or being able to make a mess. If you’re constantly telling the baby no every time they play with their food (which isn’t a parenting flaw, I’m not saying that) they get confused being allowed to do this during their session. If you don’t allow them to have many sweets they may not like the taste of the cake or the icing (insane as that sounds) during their session and won’t want to eat it.
Little Grayson was stunned at his cake, he didn’t know what to do with it, the “what is this” is basically the first reaction of every baby during the session. Grayson also wanted to be with mom and ended up crawling through the cake, which did leave him covered in icing and sprinkles (my personal favorite when it comes to cake smash cakes, simple colorful, messy, perfect!) so it worked out in the end.
Not trying to be Sour Sally over here, there are children that get it… that see cake and dive right for it with no troubles at all… which was the case with Andrew… he needed no real prompting to demolish his cake…
I try to prep all my moms in the same way with a few tips that I think may help prior to the session:
- Let them destroy a cake as practice. Nothing fancy a box cake will do! Cheer them on and let them go for it. Maybe try to mimic the situation of the session we’ve planned, sit them in the grass outside, see how they do, we may need to change our planned location for the session.
- See how they react to being dirty, see if you can get them to stand it for just a little bit. This will help during the session. If they simply hate it more than anything, we may need to go another route for the session.
- Do they like sweets? Do they like cake? Maybe a cupcake vs a large cake?
- Don’t get locked into what you see online and on Pinterest. Those aren’t your children, that’s not the park down the street from your house. We have no idea at all what planning and prep went into that session or what happened behind the scenes to get that photo. A styled session takes a lot of work and planning to accomplish. I offer these sessions but pinterest should be used for inspiration only. You can’t recreate just inspire! 🙂
Lastly, lets have fun! You can plan and prep everything all you want but when it comes right down to it, we’ve gotta go with the flow! 🙂
As a local in Jacksonville, I totally get the excitement around cake smash sessions for little ones turning a year old! It’s like a rite of passage, right? Reading through this article brought back memories of friends’ kids going through similar sessions. I couldn’t help but chuckle at Sweet little Caroline’s reluctance to get messy – poor thing! But hey, at least there were usable photos in the end. And Little Grayson’s confusion with the cake reminded me of my nephew’s first encounter with sweets. It’s so true that every kid reacts differently. I appreciate the photographer’s tips, especially about not getting too caught up in Pinterest perfection – because let’s face it, real life is messy and unpredictable, just like cake smash sessions!