Unicorns really are the 'in' thing at the moment, and seem to be getting more and more popular as time goes on, so it was only a matter of time before I was asked to do a unicorn themed cake smash! 

I'm a bit unicorn and rainbow mad (I know I know, climb on the bandwagon!) and mum asked for girly colours, so I took the theme and ran with it! We decided on a pink backdrop with complementary coloured decorations - including pom poms, which serve as a fantastic distraction when baby has had enough of the cake!

This session was a cake smash only, usually my first birthday cake smash sessions include portraits before and a splash session afterwards, so once the set was ready, it was time to unleash the cake! (Unicorn cake, of course!)

I absolutely love having a theme to work with for cake smash sessions - and I am pretty much up for any ideas! The crazier the better, after all, you only turn one once!

Read about our cake smash session and book your baby's first birthday
shoot today, by clicking HERE

Ooh so this one's going to be a bit of a Marmite session... 

So JJ's mummy sent me an email to ask if I'd be up for doing a cake smash with a difference... a zombie themed one! As a Walking Dead fan I literally squealed with excitement and said a big fat YES!

I had no idea what cake was coming, only that it fitted in with the theme and I couldn't wait to see it.

We started the session as I normally do, with some lovely portraits of JJ using various props and then some super simple ones on my fluffy rug.

Then came the best bit - cake smash time!

That cake was so gooey and sticky and so so realistic! We did have to remind ourselves that it was in fact cake, not brains, smushed all over his little face.

As you can imagine, it was a pretty hefty clean up operation afterwards! Out came the tub for JJ's bubble bath and between shots, mum was helping scrub him down and get the red food colouring out of his skin (I'm pretty sure he must have stayed dyed red for a few days afterwards!)

So what do we think? 

We had so much fun shooting this cake smash! 

Riley's family came along to his cake smash session last month, and what a messy one it was!

As usual we started with some family pictures, and pictures of Riley with his older brother and sister - Riley wasn't interested in the slightest, and so I brought out my favourite props in the hopes we could at least keep him on the backdrop long enough to get a couple of snaps!

My stool (a favourite among many babies!) worked for the briefest period, before Riley discovered he could climb off it and escape to raid the prop box ;)

Up next was Bertie, my little red racing car, and Riley loved it so much he even licked the steering wheel! We managed to get a lovely smile out of him though.

I then set up for the cake smash part of the session (my favourite bit!), and then we let Riley loose!

I think there's still chocolate cake hidden somewhere in the studio; that stuff went eeeeverywhere! That's all part of the fun though!

Once the cake had been smashed to smithereens, Riley had a quick splash in my tub in between trying to climb out, and that was his session all finished!

Riley and his family came back for their viewing last week and these are their favourite images from his session, and I hope you like them too!

Happy First Birthday Riley!

​Emma x