Hudson just celebrate his first birthday! It has seriously been the fastest year of my life. I am trying my hardest to hold on to every moment and milestone with my boys, but I am afraid that I keep letting them slip through my fingers. I really wanted to capture my baby while he was still a baby. I decided that a legit cake smash photo shoot would be the way to go… and boy when I am right, I am right! I will absolutely cherish these photos and the memory of this day for the rest of my life!

There is a lot to think about if you want to have a successful cake smash. Don’t worry though, I have my entire thought process and my steps for you!

Photographer

There are obviously people who have photography business’, that have a lot of experience with cake smashes- and handle pretty much everything. However, if you are not going that route (I did not) you’ll need to do some more planning. My amazing cousin and her budding photography friend took the photos of Hudson. My cousin got into photography a few months ago. She has completely immersed herself into it – reads about it constantly and practices all.the.time. She is amazing. I am so grateful that she took these photos for me! If someone offers to take these for you – before saying yes please, make sure you like their style, and they have proper equipment! Taking photos indoors (it is winter after-all) is a completely different ball game!

There is no sense in doing all the work for a cake smash photo-shoot if the pictures wont be up to your hopes and dreams!

Time of Day

Make sure you plan this for the right time of day! You do not want to do this when your baby should be napping, or in the middle of lunch. Book this for their happiest time of day, and not too close to when they need to eat again! Only you will know what is the bet time for your little one.

Location-Location-Location

There are few things I dislike more than photographs where people did not pay attention to the surroundings. The flooring, the wall color, the photos hanging in the background can either make or break a photo! We actually went to my Aunts house- who has a ton of windows (hello natural light!) beautiful hardwoods, and a very appealing paint color on the walls. Her sun room made the perfect location for our indoor photo-shoot. Plus, they were gracious enough to move furniture (so the photographers could move around) and let us plop Hudson and the cake right on their floor!

Decorations

I brought a lot of accessories with me. We did not use everything, but I felt better knowing we had options available to us. Since the theme was Winter ONEderland, I brought:

• Galvanized Bucket -To place the cake on
• 2 Snowflake Wall banners (Found at JoAnn Fabrics)
• Martha Steward Brand Large Cardboard Snowflakes (Found at JoAnn Fabrics)
• Fake Snow
• Mounting Putty (for the snowflake banner – I did not want to run the risk of damaging my Aunts walls)

Put a lot of thought into the overall feel you want for your photos. Etsy and Pinterest has a ton of great resources for Cake Smashes!

Don’t Forget- To plan out what your little one is going to wear! I brought 3 different pants, and a cute pair of Christmas jammies. We went with the gray corduroy pants. They went the best with the overall color scheme!

Cake

I know my talents and cake decorating is NOT one of them! I chose to have his snowman cake made. It cost $50, and was worth every.single.cent. To make up for the cost I chose to make the Pioneer Woman’s Best Ever Sheet Cake for his actual birthday party. (Instead of buying a second cake).

I wanted the cake to be 99% white, because I am not a huge fan of the colored frosting smeared all over. I like how white looks in the photos. If you do go with a color try to keep it to one or two, otherwise the colors will start to mix and you’ll end up with black frosting!

Expectations

Simply dont have them. 🙂 I thought Hudson would be diving in head first. He is such an amazing eater and gets really excited around food! However, he was shy and nervous over the cake! He hated how the icing felt between his fingers, he was very dainty when he ate the cake. He took little tiny samples of the cake instead of my expectation of him rolling around on the whole cake! Despite his lack of enthusiasm, I am still beyond thrilled!

This is a picture of him right before he started to get fussy, and make a break for it:

Cleanup

Be prepared for a massive mess! I promise it is worth it – and if you stick to my white frosting suggestion, you will not have to worry about any staining from the dye. Be prepared to give your little one a bath as soon as they are done… so, don’t forget to pack baby soap and a change of clothes. Come prepared to mop floors and wash down walls. You might want to even bring yourself a change of clothes in-case your little one covers you in cake and frosting!

Most of all enjoy this moment – and soak up every last bit of your Baby, before they become a toddler!!