First birthday photo shoots with a cake smash and tub splash have become an increasingly common part of celebrating that special occasion.

The day before your session, you’ll have sent me all your session options via email from the form that I’ll get over to you, so when you arrive everything will be set up and ready to go.

There’s time to do a clean shoot and family photos plus a cake smash and a tub splash within your session but you can choose whether you’d like to do all of those of course.  Some folk opt to just do the tub splash if their little one’s aren’t keen on cake or just the cake smash if their not a fan of bath time – whatever makes you happy is good with me.  If we’re doing all of it, there’s quite a lot to get through so it’s a reasonably fast paced session so we get it all in camera before your little one starts to tire.

The Cake Smash

When it’s time to get into the cake smash part of the session, we’ll set it up and add any topper that you’ve brought along.  The best position for cake smashing for your baby is directly behind the cake with it positioned nice and close between their legs.  If you’ve a taller cake, are using a cake stand, or they’re not too sure about the cake then we work a little bit to the side but generally we want them nice and close so they can get stuck in when they’re ready to.

Right next to the shooting area will be a bin and wet wipes – two very important elements for any cake smash!  There’ll also be a baby sized wooden spoon in case they’re not too sure about getting their hands in the cake – that’s pretty common but we’re prepared for it with the spoon!

We leave a topper in the cake until it either gets mangled or your baby takes it out and looks like they’re about to stick it in themselves, at which point we take it out and carry on without it.  That’s one of the reasons why  I always feel it’s not worth making a big investment in unless you particularly want to.

It’s pretty usual for a baby not to be quite sure what we are asking of them when we sit them down in front of a cake then stand back to watch them.   Most babies are unsurprisingly a bit hesitant.  Sometimes, we have to crack into the cake, demonstrate it’s for eating or even feed it to them directly until they get the hang of it.  The babies that dive right in and start making a mess are in the minority, it’s a very fun minority though.  They generally get more into it as we go along and even if they don’t, the good news is that you don’t need total cake devastation in order to get great cake smash pictures.  They look fab as long as they are near the cake and looking happy.

Just a note here, if your baby is one of the ones that dives right in and starts eating as though their life depended on it, we will work really fast so they don’t overeat and make themselves sick!

The Tub Splash

When they’ve eaten enough, got bored of the cake or we’ve just got all the pictures that we need, I’ll get you to pick them up and move them to the side of the shooting space. Here’s where the wet wipes come in if they’ve got really messy as you can clean them up enough that you can comfortably hold them while I clean up the floor and get the tub ready for splashing.

Obviously they are about to get in the bath so you don’t need to worry too much about getting them super clean but we just make sure their hands and face are camera ready and let the bath water do the rest of the work for us.

I set up the tub with the accessory set of your choice and add the warm water. If you’ve brought along bubble bath then we add that in (it doesn’t really matter for the photos, it just helps get any sticky icing off) and I’ll get you to get your towel nearby so we’re ready when it’s all done.

Your baby can go in the bath naked, but you’re welcome to put them in a swim nappy if you’d like – totally up to you.  Generally speaking, babies are pretty familiar with concept of splashing in water so we usually have an easier time of it here than trying to explain to them that it’s fine to get messy and play with a cake.  So we just let them have their fun and splash as much as they want to – I don’t normally recommend having bath toys in with them as they generally go straight into their mouth and then you get a lot of photos with that, but you’re welcome to bring them along if you feel it will  help your baby feel comfortable.

I have a bubble machine that’s always fully loaded so we can turn it on during the session so we can fill the air with bubbles for the purposes of both having fun and getting more great pictures.

When we’re all done, you simply get them out dry and dressed and head on back home to wait for your – they’re usually ready about ten days after your session.