How to prepare for your cake smash photoshoot

A cake smash photoshoot can be a fabulous and fun image to capture as your baby is growing up. It’s also very popular at the moment. But how to you plan and execute it to get the best results? We give you our top tips on how to prepare for your cake smash photoshoot.

Before the cake smash Shoot

It might feel like once you’ve made your cake smash booking everything is sorted. To an extent that’s true. You can be safe in the knowledge that we’ll be able to create some beautiful images for you

Choose your style

It really helps to do some research into the style of Cake Smash images you want to create. Take a look on Pinterest for cake smash ideas, and maybe even send us your favourite ideas so we can spend some time trying to get close to your favourite style.

Our preferred style is keeping a clean, plain background (white, grey, baby blue or soft pink) with no bunting, balloons or signs. For us, this keeps all the focus on your baby, which for us is the ultimate aim. Overcrowd the images and it can be distracting. But photography is very subjective, and I do also love other cake smash styles. If you’ve got very specific ideas we might need your help with the preparation. As a family photography business, covering many different genres, we are not able to store lots of cake smash props. But we can work together to get all the props necessary

During the Shoot

The day arrives, and your at the photography studio. This is where the fun really starts, but don’t expect it to just happen. Here are a few tips to help the session go smoothly.

Start Without the Cake

Often families book their cake smash baby photoshoot for their child’s 1st birthday. This is huge milestone in your baby’s life, and you should celebrate this with more than just images of them covered in cake.

We always like to start our cake smash sessions capturing some classic and timeless portraiture without the cake. You and your partner can be part of these images as well if you wish. It’s best to do this at the beginning of the session, before your baby gets covered in sticky icing, and maybe starts to get tired.

Stay with them Initially

It can be a bit daunting for a 1 year old to be in an unfamiliar place with a stranger, so they need their mum or dad to stay close. The last thing you want to do is dump them on the floor, stick the cake in front of them and run away expecting the magic to happen. Sounds funny when you say it like that but we’ve seen it happen. The poor child has no idea why they’ve been abandoned and this can result in tears.

After the Shoot

The Clean Up After The Cake Smash

Remember those spare clothes, towels, and wet wipes? This is where we need them. With the studio looking like an explosion in a cake factory a lot of mums are desperate to help us clean up at this stage. But really there is no need. The most important thing for us is to look after your baby. They’re probably still covered in cake, and likely still trying to shove as much as they can in their mouths. So please don’t worry about the studio. Just remove your baby from the scene and get them wiped down and into some clean clothes, and leave the clean up to us. We’re used to that and are not offended. Plus it means we can crack on really quickly knowing that your baby is safe and being looked after.

The Wait

We know that once the shoot is over and you’re (almost) cleaned up, you’re desperate to view your images. But we’ll need you to come back in a couple of weeks so that we’ve got some time to work our magic. Only a part of the image creation comes from the shoot. We first need to pick out the favourite images so that you have about 30 images to choose from when you return. Any more than that we find is overwhelming. We then go to work on the cropping, retouching and enhancing your images so they look fantastic for your viewing session

The Viewing Session

This is the bit you’ve been waiting for. Everybody loves our viewing sessions. Simply sit back with a cup of coffee and enjoy a beautiful slideshow of your images. Once the slideshow is over we will help you choose your favourites and