Celebrate Their Birthday Milestone With A Custom Cake Smash!
CT Cake Smash Photographer
"Birthday (Noun) - Nature's way of telling us to eat cake." ~ Unknown
It probably seems like yesterday that you were holding your newborn baby in your arms, and bringing them to the studio for their photoshoot. You've watched them grow over the last year, from an infant, to a sitter baby, and now maybe standing or walking in time for their first birthday. Feature the growth of these milestones with custom cake smash photography by The Flash Lady Photography. We've even had our cake smash work featured on WTNH!
A cake smash photoshoot is designed to allow for babies/toddlers age 1 and up to have a portrait session that's both fun and exciting for their age! Each session is custom designed for your child with birthday themes created by hand involving my extensive collection of props, florals, backdrops, balloons, and other speciality items. Our full service photography experience takes care of everything you'll need for a great photoshoot. Cake smash photography is about much more than eating cake!
Cake Smash First Birthday Photoshoot - How It Works!
1. Birthday Portraits
We utilize a 3-part series of photos during your cake smash to ensure that babies & toddlers have a chance to warm up to the environment. This may involve play, props, balloons, music, acting silly - and everyone participates! It's a great way to have some "clean" photos of your baby, sometimes you may choose to bring a 2nd outfit for this portion.
2. The Cake Smash
The cake is why we're here, right?! We'll guide baby into exploring their birthday cake, which we provide from one of our local cake baker experts. Eating is of course encouraged, but not necessary if they aren't ready for that! Play, exploration, and capturing their development is what we are really hoping to take photos of. So don't stress if they are timid!
3. Baby Tub Bath
We're not going to send you home with a messy baby! The tub bath is a great way to end the session and capture a few more images, especially if the cake smash photos were very messy! And for those with sensory sensitivities, we can clean them off by hand and play with the ducks/tub dry as well. Bubbles, rubber duckie, splashing, and a clean baby!
Creating Our Cake Smash Themes
Our planning with each family for their child's custom birthday photos starts with a consultation - either in person, over the phone, or via email. Here, we can discuss what ideas you might have based on your child's nursery/bedroom, decor in your home, or favorite colors. I also have a menu of cake smash themes that I can send you that shows you what themes I have done in the past for other clients. Many will choose right from here! Or, because my themes are all based on real props, we are able to mix and match backgrounds and specific items to make something unique for you!
*Due to licensing limitations, you will find that the majority of our themes are based on colors, styles, or events rather than characters. As artists ourselves, we understand and appreciate the value of items created by another entity. You are welcome to bring items you have purchased yourself if you would like a particular character featured in your photoshoot. There are so many unique themes we can create without characters, many times clients are more than OK with creating something we decide together!
Cake Smash photography is truly an art of not only creating the theme and planning for the photoshoot itself, but capturing your child as they experience something new for the first time. Often it is my favorite part of photographing babies and children is that we never know what's going to happen! Relax, knowing that my many years of experience working with children of all ages and needs will give you beautiful photos you can look back on fondly year after year. And just because they aren't turning 1, doesn't mean we can't plan a custom cake smash for your child too!
Ready to Plan A Cake Smash Experience?
Cake Smash Photography FAQs
Although some like to book their session as close to their child's birthday as possible, we actually recommend scheduling closer to 11 months old if it's for the first birthday. We can not only try to see them prior to walking, but you'll may also have the photos back in time for the big celebration!
We ALWAYS recommend that your child has been exposed to a frosted cupcake (or similar) as well as wheat, dairy, and eggs in advance. If you already know of an allergy concern, we will ask that you bring an allergy free cake to use. We'd recommend Dee's One Smart Cookie in Glastonbury! Or, we can discuss using another food that is appropriate for their age. Some have brought fruit, yogurt, spaghetti, or something else they really like and incorporate it into the theme! *The Flash Lady Photography and its bakers are not liable for food or soap/material allergies if you agree to use the items that we provide.
As children are many different sizes, and themes are so different, an outfit is the only thing you'll usually need to bring with you for your child to wear. We ask that you bring NO MORE than 2 outfits for the session. Babies at the first birthday age often are not excited about changing, and we don't want to upset them throughout the appointment. 1-2 is plenty!
YES! If so, however, this is a very short couple of photos that we'll do first. Babies at this stage will only last at most, 45 minutes to an hour tops! If we're spending a lot of time on family photos they may be cranky by the time the smash happens. We can discuss what might be best for your specific situation. Our recommendation is a separate outdoor family photography appointment to focus more time on family photos.
This is a main reason why our cake smash photoshoots are 3-parts! Some babies dive right in to the cake and make a glorious mess, while others are shy, timid, or not used to table foods quite yet. There are some tips I send to my clients beforehand about preparing for the session that can help. No matter what, we have many tricks to make the photos adorable, however they react to it, and often times they love another part of the photoshoot just as much!
Our Session Fees are $200 for cake smash photography to book your appointment. This covers our pre-session consultation, the session itself, use of my props, outfits, and backgrounds, and your personal Design & Ordering appointment to go over your images together. All photos and products are purchased separately. See our Pricing page for more information.
Truly a great experience with the Flash Lady! We used her for a cake smash for our little ones first birthday. Kristin created a beautiful and comfortable environment that resulted in amazing pictures! We were able to view our pictures very quickly and she helped us to design a photo album.
We had our daughter's pictures taken as she is approaching her first birthday, I am so glad I have chosen Kristin. She is very professional and also keen on details. I was surprised to see that my daughter had such a great time during the shoot, there really is some charm in her picture taking skills! I will be definitely be using her services for future and would recommend her to anyone who is looking for special occasion photoshoot.
We had such a great experience with Kristin. She did a themed first birthday cake smash shoot for us. The custom set for our theme she came up with was amazing and I was so impressed with the amount of patience she has during the actual shoot when our daughter was being shy and less then cooperative. She also walked us through photo selection which was very helpful. I highly recommend her!