Turning one!

Your little one is turning one, hooray!

This is such a momentous point in yours and your babies life so far! Turning one marks the change from baby to toddler, and most parents that I know have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Excited that their baby is gaining more independence but kind of sad to be losing their tiny little chubby babe! So I thought I'd share some information about how I can help you mark and celebrate your little ones first birthday.

Lets celebrate what makes them laugh, smile, curl up their toes, I want to see, hear and document all of those special little moments for you to treasure and hold on to as your baby steps into the world of being one.

A cake smash photo session with dinkyheart photography is a little bit different to the usual cake smash. I encourage you to begin the session with a family/ portrait session before we begin the actual cake smash. This is because I like to document your little one as they are on their first birthday. And whilst a baby smashing a cake is cute, a little one smiling, laughing and toddling or crawling is equally worth treasuring.

So the first thing we need to decide on is the location. I'd usually recommend the cake smash and family session takes place in or around your home, I like the session to be somewhere that is familiar to your little one and that will mean something to you all in years to come, what better place than your babies home and local park or garden. The more familiar the place the more likely we'll get nice relaxed happy smiley cakey pictures.

So once the location has been decided and the time set you need to have a think about the look of your pictures, will they be simple, just a cake and your little one digging in, or will they be styled with lots of cute props and things for your little one to play with?

I encourage you to style the cake smash photos as you like, rather than going for a uniform studio style setting, because these are your photos of your precious baby and I want to capture that for you.

Below is a list of considerations, remember you can make it as simple or as complex as you like, the result of a happy cakey baby will be the same either way.

1. A cake - with really yummy icing - remember this is probably the first cake your little one has tasted so they may not be overly keen but if it tastes amazing they can usually be convinced! Some parents make the cake themselves, some have one made, one mum had a fancy cake made for their little ones party which we used for some photos and then swapped in a cheaper one for the actual smash - again what ever works for you. I personally baked mine and it ended up costing way more than if I'd popped down to magnolia bakery and just bought one but at the time I was a bit obsessed about knowing exactly how much sugar was in it etc - in hindsight Ede ate so little of the cake I really shouldn't have worried!

2. Props - balloons, bunting, blankets, pom poms, headbands, pearls, cake stand etc etc etc! Think about a colour theme and what your little one will wear and then head to the Party Camel for all of the above!

3. An outfit - will your little one just wear bloomers, a tutu, a special birthday outfit (that you don't mind covering in cake).

4. Will you have a special cake topper made? I got a beautiful cake topper from The Party They make custom toppers for your little ones special day and I just love them!

And my last little tip is make sure you have some banana to hand - This was the idea of one very clever mummy who's little one didn't like cake - instead she played with the cake but ate banana and the results were the same ;)