A Sunset Cake Smash Session at the Beach

Although I Have a fully equipped studio space, I love shooting outdoor sessions. Photographing families and children outdoors allows for more natural, candid and relaxed images. A first birthday is the perfect opportunity to update your family photos and capture adorable images of the birthday child.

This client contacted me for a cake smash scheduled outdoors for her son’s first birthday. She wanted a very natural session with no props, which is perfect for me because I prefer a much more natural and simplistic look to my images.

We started the session with portraits of the birthday boy, who was dressed in the most adorable nautical striped overalls outfit. He was full of laughter throughout the session. We grabbed some family portraits and then headed down to the shore to capture some images of Mr D crawling around in the sand, playing in the water, cuddling with mom and dad, and, best of all, he laughed throughout the entire process. I have never photographed a child as happy as he and it was a pleasure to capture his special day.

We ended the session with a simple and beautiful blue ombre iced cake that the client’s dad made for the occasion. At this point, the sun was setting , which served as the most beautiful backdrop for the cake smash portion of the session. The birthday boy dove right into his cake and happily grabbed fistfuls of cake to enjoy.

I love the images form this session and I love that I was also able to capture some really sweet family moments as well. Here are a few of my favorites from the session.