It's been a while since I did a cake smash blog and after this session, I knew this would be the one. Little Albie came to visit me the other week to celebrate his first birthday and my, did we have a smashing time.

Our cake smash sessions are a different way to celebrate your little one’s birthday. It's not only a way to capture this huge milestone in their lives but it also gives you lasting images and memories that last forever. Not only do they grow so quickly but nowadays with all our smartphones, it's not often people get real images taken. We always offer family/sibling images with all our sessions which I also think it is such an important thing to capture. How many of the images of your smartphones include you all as a family? I know mine doesn’t. As a parent(s) you are always behind the camera and not in the image. Creating those lasting family portraits are so important, and Albies grandad managed to come for a couple too.

This also leads me to approach the subject of prints. I always give ‘’Gift prints’’ with all my packages as it's nice to have your images in a physical form and not stuck on your USB in a drawer somewhere.  Digital is so easy, convent and the way of life now however I do pride myself on providing a full service and this includes giving you something tangible. These even make perfect gifts to grandparents, aunties, uncles, godparents etc.

​As always I offer some before images these can include family/sibling images if you wish, this gives you a variety of images on top of the cake smashing part and of course our splish splash in the tub. As you can see little Albie enjoyed his cake smash session so much he even decided to lower his head down the cake and take the biggest bite. This was defiantly the highlight of his session. He had such character and to watch him enjoy getting stuck into his cake was such an honour. It's always an honour to capture this huge milestone for little ones and their families. I truly love the simplicity of this cake smash and how little Albie rocked his session. 

​Every cake smash session is tailored to a theme/colour suited to you and your little one, in this case, our client chose a subtle but colourful set-up and went for our white backdrop with blue and white balloons, a simple but effective design. Picking something simple but subtle doesn’t take the focus away from little one and it also enables the images to be put up with any room decor. Bumps baby beyond also provided the nappy cover and braces which are specially designed by Pixey Dust Photography Props. Each of our setups includes the cake too! I know amazing right. Simply book your session with us and we have you covered for most of the designs/themes. I also offer varieties when it comes to the ingredients of the cakes. All our cakes are made by the fabulous Dina from Dina’s cake creations. She tailors the cakes to most dietary needs. We have done most now, Egg-free, Gluten free, Dairy free, Vegan, Vegetarian and we’ve even had our first fruit cake last year. Yes, I don’t mean fruit as in the actual cake I mean a cake made out of fruit. It was truly incredible. You will see from our sample gallery how great Dina’s cakes truly are and the fact she can tailor to most dietary needs is even better. Always get in touch and ask us. Here at Bumps Baby Beyond if we can do it then we always do. 

If you want to see a little behind the scenes, please see the below video 

Little Finley-Jay came to visit me here at Bumps Baby Beyond a few weeks ago for his cake smash session. 

Our cake smash sessions are a different way to celebrate your little one’s birthday. What better way than capturing this huge milestone in their lives and having such beautiful images to treasure forever? They grow so quickly that to have this priceless moment to look back on is something to help hold onto that moment that goes by in a flash!

Every cake smash session is tailored to a theme/colour suited to your little one, in this case Finley-Jay's mummy chose to go with a subtle but colourful set up and chose our favourite, blue triangles with our specially designed outfit by Pixey Dust Photography Props. Each of our set ups contain decorations in the background. On this occasion mum wished to keep things simple and went for our navy blue, light blue and white bunting. 

As always I offer some before images too, this gives you a variety of images on top of the cake smashing part and of course our splish splash in the tub. We stuck with fairly natural images and added slight colours to give a subtle effect for Finley-Jay pre smash images. Here are a few of my favourite... 

​I love the simplicity of this cake smash and how all the colours worked so well and didn’t take too much focus from Finley-Jay.

​I always offer a splash in the tub after a session as this is the easiest way to clean your little one up and allow them to drift off in the car on the way home after such an excitable experience. As always this is littles one’s favourite part and makes for such lovely images of them being so curious and just splashing everywhere and seeing how far the bubbles travel. 

​I'm a little late in writing these blogs but recently Precina and Dipesh celebrated their sons 1st birthday by doing a cake smash photo shoot and he loved it. Form the moment he walked into the studio to the moment he left he was full of character and smiles! It was a true please to meet this little boy who just filled my studio with laugher (and animal noises hehe)

His mummy brought in a lovely jeans and hat outfit that suited him down to a t, he absolutely rocked that hat from Mamas & Papas!

​As we were singing songs and asking animal noises his mum noticed the cloud and star set I have from pixey dust and thought it would really suit him. He loved this set up and when his mummy was telling him how much she loved him he threw his hands in the air – it was so cute! 

​Khyal spied the bike in the corner of my studio so we swiftly moved on to that prop and threw some mint colours in there; the really complimented him! 

Mummy made her own cake for his cake smash session and boy did he love it! It was a healthy carrot cake and he got stuck right in! he really didn’t need any prompting or help, he dived in and before we knew it he was covered in it all. Squished in his little hands and feet, on his legs, arms, tummy…the lot! 

​After he was finished demolishing his cake he took a soak in the bath whilst clapping his hands, splashing around and finishing off with a quick pick of the nose haha

This time i thought it would be nice to have a blog from mums point of view, I asked Alison to write a short routine of their session with us and how she thought her daughters cakesmash was so ill hand it over to her...

"Their first birthday is massive milestone, it’s not only about the fact of them turning one but it marks the day that we survived the first year of parenthood!!
​
Due to our house falling through recently we moved in with my in-laws, therfore a birthday party was out of the question so I began to think of other ideas. The one that always stood out was a cake smash, from day one when I had this little bean inside me I knew I wanted to have one done. The only other question left was, what photographer am I going to use?

After knowing bianca and seeing her work first hand it was out of the question to look for anyone else. After all she ticked every last thing box, from colour scheme’s, to cake designs and outfits, to what she offered and how every last thing was covered. Everything was there in place to ensure that the cake smash session was tailored to our little girl. We even got a ‘’what to expect guide’’ which made me feel at ease straight away knowing I had an idea of what to expect.

As the day arrived I was so excited; probably more excited than Ayla (my little girl)! When we arrived at the studio we was welcomed in, it was all set up, lovely and warm with outfits ready for our pre cake smash photos and i got given a section to choose from. My most favourite out of all the props defiantly had to be the wooden bowl Ayla sat in, Bianca captured the moment perfectly as Ayla looked directly into the camera with a cheeky expression.

​After the pre cake smash photos we went onto the main event, the cake smashing part!!
This is the part that surprisingly usually takes the longest for little ones to accept, but don’t mind if I blow my own trumpet by saying, that I followed Bianca’s tips by giving Ayla cupcakes loaded with butter icing prior to the session to ensure Ayla didn’t freak out at the texture of the cake, which she didn’t, thank goodness!! Oh and the cake, WOW it was scrummy, and exactly what I had said I wanted. Me being me, I wanted different styles of cakes putting together and that is exactly what I got complete with a princess crown on top...we even got to take some home with us! Thanks Dina 'click here' for her cake page (trust me she is the best in town!)

​Bianca captured all the best bits with Ayla chomping away and even her tiny, caked up toes.
It was so fun... for both of us.

After the messy part was done the bath tub came out. This was such a fun and easy way to clean Ayla up after all that mess she had made. It was so nice not to have to worry if she splashed too much or if water went everywhere, Ayla was allowed to just do what she liked.
​
My most favourite photo from this all was when Ayla splashed and Bianca snapped mid splash. 

​It truly was such a happy, fun experience from start to finish.
It is one thing I would do over and over again if I could and of course thanks all goes to Bianca for everything she did for our session start to finish including all the contact from when we booked right through to our products."

I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much to Alison for taking the time to describe what her session was like and I hope this gives you an insight to out Cake Smash Sessions here at Bumps Baby Beyond :) Here is a little video from her session 

​I was truly honoured as a Leicestershire cake smash photographer to capture this sweet boy Frieddie’s 1st birthday cake smash. What a happy little chap he was, full of laugher from the moment he walked through the door he bounded in with a big smile! 

​Mummy came to me asking for a Hungry Caterpillar theme, she had hand made his outfit and bunting and needed a cake to match. Of course I went to Diana’s Cake Creations – she really does do the best cakes around and Freddie got stuck straight in there! 

​Once we placed the cake in front of Freddie he dived right in, with the occasional help of mum and dad cheering him on. 

​I love it when mum and dad get involved and Freddie was kindly sharing his cake with both mummy and daddy hehe.  

​To find out more about a cake smash session please click here