PROPER PHOTOGRAPHY
CAKE SMASH SESSION GUIDE
The first year of your baby’s life flies by in the blink of an eye! Before you know it, they’ll be toddling around, saying their first words, and turning into real little people. A baby’s first birthday is a monumental occasion, typically marked by a celebration. Let us help celebrate with you, for your baby’s cake smash session.
TYPES OF CAKE SMASH SESSIONS
CLASSIC
The classic package includes the cake smash set only, with a simple unthemed paper backdrop. You tell us what colour(s) you’d like to incorporate, and we prepare a clean pretty set. These sessions usually last about 20-30 minutes or so, and we curate a gorgeous gallery of your little one.
For this package, we ask parents be responsible for baby’s clothes, and cake.
DELUXE
The deluxe package gives you the option of a more stylized or themed cake smash set. You let us know the theme/colours/ideas you had in mind and we’ll put it all together! Included also in the deluxe package are two other sets. The first, done before the cake smash, with more neutral non-themed photos, to really focus on your little ones. This first set can incorporate some parent/family photos as well, if preferred*. The other set, taking place after the cake smash, is the “tub” set. This is great if baby wasn’t so sure about the cake smash portion (because all babies love baths!), and doubles as a great way to get baby cleaned up. The tub portion can be prepared with regular water, or as a milk bath.
For this package, we ask parents be responsible for baby’s clothes, and cake.
*Please note, the family portion of this package is NOT a family session, just a small handful of images for those wanting to have a few updated family shots. We do not allow extended family members in these sessions, immediate family only.
WHEN SHOULD YOU BOOK?
We appreciate bookings to be made as soon as possible! Particularly with the deluxe package, we need time to build and put together pieces for an incredible set. Ideally, we purchase and collect items over the course of several months, so the sooner the booking, the better!
For scheduling purposes, we tend to book cake smash sessions approximately 2-3 weeks prior to baby’s birthday, depending on our work load. That way, we can be sure to have your final gallery back to you before your little one’s birthday.
Where?
Sessions take place at our home studio, at 144 Front St. N, in Sarnia.
How many photos will I receive, and when will I receive them?
Our typical session ends with somewhere in the range of ~50 final edited images. In approximately 2-3 weeks after the session (unless stated otherwise due to outside factors), you will receive a private online gallery of these images.
PROPS
The deluxe package includes a set with lots of stylized, and specific props. Leave this to us! We’ve gotten pretty good at putting together sets to fit themes (if we do say so ourselves 😉 )
USEFUL TIPS TO PREPARE
Cake smash sessions are messy. While we expect a certain level of icing explosion, most parents don’t realize that they too will end the session being covered in cake, and sugary goodness. Bring TONS of baby wipes to clean yourselves up after, as well as a bag to put cakey clothes in after as well. If you bring baby to session in their cake smash outfit, I’d recommend bringing a secondary outfit to change them into afterwards.
If baby’s never had cake or icing before, we recommend feeding your child timbits a week or so before the session to prepare their palettes. Not all babies love the shock of sugar to their system instantly, so this little tip will help avoid meltdowns. As well, it’s always useful for parents to bring some additional little snacks that you know baby loves (puffs, goldfish, etc). When baby just isn’t feeling the cake, we can push some of these little snacks into the back of the cake, to jump start the smashing process. Some babies also hate the texture of icing, so we have a little spatula babies can use to bash the cake, if necessary.
POST SESSION
Once your session is complete, we back everything up on multiple servers, to ensure the raw files are saved for life.
While we’re in the process of editing your session, we can post teaser photos to our social media accounts, if you are comfortable with that. If not, we can send you private teaser images via email, or Facebook.
Within 2-3 weeks (unless stated otherwise), we will contact you with the link to a password protected online gallery, where you can view, and download all of the high resolution, unwatermarked images. You have full print and post rights, though we retain all rights to our own images as well.
In this online gallery proofing site, you can order prints, share, and favourite photos. This gallery will be online for the foreseeable future, though we highly encourage you to download your own images, and back them up yourself. We always keep back ups of all edited and raw images as well, just in case.
INVESTMENT
CLASSIC PACKAGE
A Classic Cake Smash session with Proper Photography is $350 (HST included). Upon booking, we require a 50% non-refundable deposit, to hold your spot, with the remainder of the fee due on/before the date of the session.
* A small and short family portion can be added to this package for an additional $50*
DELUXE PACKAGE
A Deluxe Cake Smash session with Proper Photography is $550 (HST included). Upon booking, we require a 50% non-refundable deposit, to hold your spot, with the remainder of the fee due on/before the date of the session.
THEME IDEAS
Sometimes it’s tricky to come up with the perfect theme for your little one. We’ve had lots of examples posted on our social media. Unsure? Just ask, and we can help you with ideas!
