Cairo's First Birthday Cake Smash - Birmingham, UK

Name a better way to celebrate turning one than with a cake smash?

Elizabeth Aldred Photography is here to capture your little one's first birthday cake smash, right here in Birmingham, UK.

I was so happy to see Cairo's mum get in contact for another cake smash, after photographing his big brother Albie's smash a few years ago! It's always great to see how the family is getting on and meeting the new additions.

At first we were torn whether to match Cairo's cake smash to his big brothers one or go in a different direction. When his mum told me his birthday theme was safari, I instantly knew we had to run with this theme.

I always welcome suggestions from parents for how you want your childs first birthday cake smash, but I am always here to help lead the direction when it comes to sets and themes. Straight away I thought this kind of theme screamed for a balloon garland, which I must admit I feel like a professiona balloon artist at this point! Incorporating earthy tones such as browns, creams and different shades of green but also giving just a pop with some gold. I found a couple of colour ways I thought would be epic and showed them to Cairo's mum for the final say! Like I mentioned earlier, this is your session and I will happily take the lead but I will always finalise my plans with you so we have the same vision.

We set on a colour way and decided to opt for a cream backdrop as we thought white could be too contrasty with the earthy tones we had selected, and cream always complements gold!

My only problem? All my boys cake smash outfits were white or blue, and I don't need to tell you how much those would have clashed with the colour scheme we had chosen. So after a frenzied outfit search, I found some gorgeous options to complement the colours and in my basket they went!

All my cake smash packages offer the use of my client wardrobe, although you are always welcome to bring your own outfits (as sometimes parents like to keep them as a mementos), so I definitely needed to ensure we had some outfit choices that would suit the safari theme. After finalising these details it was my time to dicuss the cake with my fabulous baker. For obvious reasons red and brown are cake colours we try to avoid for smash sessions as sometimes they can resemble things you don't want to see... so we headed in the direction of a cream cake with shades of green and gold accents.

With the theme idea in the bag, balloons ordered, outfits sorted and cake finalised, it was time to think of what added extras I could add into the session to incoroporate the safari theme. I opted for some greenary to intertwine throughout the balloon garland and I have this perfect prop (which is actually normally used for newborn sessions), that when its flipped upside down it looks like a tree stump! That paired with some more trailing greenery and of course some large ONE letters to help mark his first birthday, I was set and very excited to get this vision to life.

I started with the set up the evening before to ensure I had time if I felt like anything was missing. I must admit the colours we chose for this set were so unlike any I had been using recently, it was such a breath of fresh air to see and as I began to see the vision come to life, I was ecstatic!

When mum, dad and Cairo arrived all were thrilled with the set, which is the best reaction I could ask for as parents walk through the door!

When it came to the session Cairo was a little hestitant and didn't want to leave his dad's side. So we got dad involved in the cake smash too! Even mum joined in later on and they were definitely messier than Cairo. There's a first for eveything, and this was my first time having parents as part of the session, it definitly added to the fun and made it one for me to remember! In the end we managed to get Cairo comfortable enough to have some shots on his own and he absolutely SMASHED it! We were all so proud of him! After these shots we knew Cairo had enough, so we got him cleaned up and ready to go home.

The package chosen for Cairo's first birthday cake smash was my Milk Package, which includes the session time, use of client wardrobe, professionally baked cake supplied and 5 digital images.

Cake supplied by Sprinkled with Love