It is your baby’s first birthday photo session. You are so excited. But, then the overwhelm starts. Endless possibilities. Colors? Pink or Purple? Gold or Silver? OR WAIT?! Should we do a theme?! Minnie Mouse, Ariel, Under the Sea, Elephants, HELP!

We get a lot of these questions when people are planning their sweet baby’s first birthday/smash cake session. So, I think it might be helpful to talk a little bit about our process when we help our parents plan for these sessions. We understand that the first birthday is a really big deal for some of our clients. You have watched your baby go from milestone to milestone and you want to celebrate the last year of ups and downs, sleeping and not sleeping, nursing/bottle feeding, eating solids, rolling over, crawling, falling, etc. It is an emotional time for a lot of parents. WE GET IT 🙂 So, let’s talk about planning!


The first thing we do is ask you if you want a theme or do you want specific colors. I will be the first to say: I believe in simple colors. They are easier to match, they aren’t too busy, and more focus is on baby instead of the surrounding backdrops. My favorite birthday session by far is one we did in a field with pink and glitz as the primary colors. They turned out so cute!



But, I am well aware that this isn’t my baby’s session and you might be really into Minnie Mouse, SO, the next thing is do you want a smash cake session? The smash cake should coordinate with the theme/color choices that we decided on in the first part.

This cake is a great example. It was dark pink, light pink, and white and then accented with the gold crown and one to match baby girl’s outfit and the setup.

Next, outfit choice. If you are going with a theme, I still recommend a plain outfit. For example, if you are going with a Minnie Mouse theme, then a cute white romper or dress would be adorable and wouldn’t take the focus off of the baby’s face. Try to steer away from polka dots/stripes/wild prints.

Finally, if you can’t decide, I always come back to the question of “how would a framed print of this idea look on the walls in my home?” If it would clash, then I generally tend to go toward a more simple look! I hope this helps you all out a little bit! I know the choices for a first birthday can be overwhelming! But, it is possible to narrow it down! 🙂