Many of my clients have been opting to do family sessions in place of the traditional first birthday sessions. I love this idea for so many reasons. Opting for this type of session allows you to update your family portraits and get birthday portraits of your little one as well. It allows me to capture all of those fun and cozy moments with baby and with the full family session, we still have time to do a cake smash.

This recent birthday session was an absolute blast. My client lives on the beach and wanted to do a family session and a cake smash on the ocean to celebrate her son’s first birthday. Because I am a sunset children’s photographer, this is may favorite type of session photograph. We scheduled the session at my usual time, which is an hour before sunset. Because the light is soft and flattering at golden hour, it is the best time of day to capture photos of families on the beach. Although this time of day can be challenging for families with younger children, the late bedtime is ultimately worth it because the light at this time of day is magnificent. This little man started to get sleepy during the session, but he did such an amazing job and we got such awesome captures of the birthday boy and his family.

I am not a prop driven photographer, especially with outdoor sessions, but because we were doing some birthday photos during this family session, we used a few. Mom brought along a nautical banner she used at his first birthday party and the most beautiful buttercream icing cake with a fondant surfboard on top. I brought along a simple wood nautical “one” sign. Baby loved that sign and wouldn’t let us take it out of the frame of the photos.

My favorite part of this session is baby’s blue bunny lovey. He had it with him for the majority of the session. I love that the parents were OK with allowing him to have it in the photos. I always encourage my clients to bring along loveys; it is so important to document this attachment. You will want these images when baby is grown up and the lovey is sitting in a memory box somewhere. The images of him with bunny are amongst my favorite from the session.

I had a great time photographing this fun loving family. Here are a few of my favorites from the session. I am still booking family sessions for August and October with very limited availability. Contact me for more information.