When planning a cake smash for your little one’s first birthday one of the biggest decisions you need to make is about decorations. Decorations, colour scheme and the cake. Of course, the possibilities are endless and once you start searching on Pinterest for some inspiration the rabbit hole you dive into can be very deep indeed. Yesterday I wrote about choosing your little boy’s cake smash colour scheme and decorations and today is all about little girls!
When I talk with my clients about the types of decorations and colours I love to see in your portraits, I always start with the premise that your baby is the star, the focus of the set up. The decorations and colours just add a few little details in the background.
I want to keep the focus on your baby, on all the beautiful little details, features, and personality quirks that your little one has right now, on their 1st birthday.
There are generally two styles of decorations that I offer in my studio for cake smash sessions. The traditional balloons and bunting set up, or a more natural, botanical theme. Both of these offer beautiful backdrops for a cake smash, and I love to keep them simple and classic.
Choosing which of these set ups you want to use can be as simple as deciding on what types of colours you want to see in your photos.
For the traditional balloon set ups, the colour palette of the backdrop can vary, and some of my most popular set ups are on white or peach backgrounds for little girls. Choosing one or two complimentary colours of balloons and a simple bunting adds just enough contrast without detracting from your beautiful baby.
I do not very often use helium balloons in my set ups for a number of reasons. The main one being they end up being much higher than the baby and the cake for many of the portraits. That being said, they can offer some beautiful details when paired with either some air-filled balloons or pom poms as in the set up below.
I do love being a little bit creative with the background decorations in a little girls cake smash. The examples below shows some beautiful pink and mauve paper butterflies in the background. This set up is just beautiful and subtle for a little girl celebrating her first birthday.
For the natural, botanical set ups I love shooting with eucalyptus varieties, as they offer a softer, blue-green palette which is less neon green than other greenery varieties. Adding in some flowers to match in with your colour theme gives some beautiful pops of colour and adds some soft texture and contrast. Flowers vary depending on what is available at the market on the day of the shoot, and are chosen depending on what matches best with the colour scheme of the session.
Once you have decided on your background set up, colours and decorations, the cake is the next big decision. There are so many possibilities for little girl cakes, and here are just a few of my favourites from my amazing baker, Jo over at The Bakehouse 698 in Brookvale has created for me and my clients (they are beautiful AND delicious!).
Semi naked cakes are so popular and look amazing with both coloured icing or simple white icing! Using soft (& delicious) buttercream icing makes these cake so easy for little fingers to get messy in! It is just perfect, and the semi-naked cakes have a perfect amount of icing to get covered in!
Adding some texture to the cake with this rosette style cake is stunning as well and so gorgeous for little girls. The beauty of these cake is that the icing can be a few different shades of the one colour. In the examples below you can see 3 shades of pinks.
Jo even makes beautiful watercolour-inspired cakes with a soft mix of colours such as this beautiful pink, purple and white cake with some rice-paper butterflies to finish off the theme for this butterfly set up.
For some more inspiration for your little girl’s cake smash head over to my Pinterest Boards, to see more examples of beautiful little girl cake smash sessions we have created here at Bree Hulme Photography. My Cake Smash Gallery also has many beautiful cake smash portraits for you to look through.
I have also put together a little guide in choosing outfits for your little girls cake smash which you can find here. That is another big decision.
So let’s create some beautiful milestone portraits to celebrate your little girl’s 1st birthday! Book your cake smash session now!