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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find cake smashes a bit weird

145 replies

chompybot · 18/07/2015 11:16

Ok so there seems to be this thing recently where you can have a 'cake smash' photography session, I've seen quite a few mums posting on Facebook about it, and baby photographers offer it as a photo shoot. Basically the baby is sat with a big cake and encouraged to grab it with their hands and smear it over their face whilst being photographed. Anyone else think this is a weird photo to have on your wall?

Maybe I am over-thinking it or it had caught me at a bad time, with all these children in developing countries who are malnourished, and then there are these cake smash photos and it seemed to me it is celebrating the fact we have so much food in this country that we can waste it for a photo shoot.

I probably just need to lighten up!

OP posts:
insancerre · 19/07/2015 09:25

Grin thelastpickle
I'd do the same !
I think the cake smash is a bit daft
I like the idea of an unplanned food fight, had a few as a child. Lots of fun and the fact that we would get into trouble added to the fun
I saw some photos on Facebook recently of a little girl and her 3rd birthday party. The adults gave the children cakes to decorate and then smashed the up. The birthday girl was distraught and the mum took photos of her distress and posted them. I was speechless layer when she complained that her dd was upset.
It was actually very cruel and a she just couldn't see it

Stealthpolarbear · 19/07/2015 09:29

So grown adults do do it too? Why??

steppedonlego · 19/07/2015 09:53

I had one done for my daughters first birthday. Reduced to clear asda cake, no not really a waste issue. Daughter loved it. She's a lover of mess so maybe a few handfuls made it into her mouth but most was about crumbling it up and throwing it around.

I like it because it shows her personality, and the photos are of a good quality. I have hundreds of snaps that I'm putting in albums of course, but something to give granny in a frame is lovely too.

BumpTheElephant · 19/07/2015 10:36

YANBU op.

JohnFarleysRuskin · 19/07/2015 11:25

It's this year's flower-pot.

Very odd.

futureme · 19/07/2015 11:50

I dont know why youd have a framed photo of a staged cake smash. I honestly don't! Id far rather a framed photo of something natural! It seems such an odd thing to photo/look at!

A natural photo of a kid getting messy is fine, and i have them, but woildnt frame them!

Alconleigh · 19/07/2015 12:05

Lots of people are more interested in photos of them (or their family etc) enjoying themselves than actually enjoying themselves. This is linked to that I think. I agree with those who think it's staged and wasteful.

slithytove · 19/07/2015 15:11

What makes it unnatural though?

If you give a kid a slice of cake and take photos, it's ok.

If someone professional takes the pictures, is it still ok? Or if the kid has a whole cake?

Surely the actions are still natural. I know when we chose to put ds's entire cake in front of him instead of one piece, what unfolded was totally natural.

But I suppose we staged it by having him in a party hat, by making a birthday cake, and by having a camera ready.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 19/07/2015 16:55

Yebbut putting a whole cake in front of a 1yo is unnatural, IMO. It's just not what you would normally do, you'd give them a piece and let them get on with it. And yes, I'd take pics of their face afterwards (and have: DS2 + cake = hilarious)

PageNotFound404 · 19/07/2015 17:13

Weird, wasteful, strange message to send your children, messy, unappealing and ostentatious. I hate pictures of children with food on their faces, I don't like seeing dirty faces and hands my impulse is to wash them right away

That sums it up for me. YANBU, OP.

notquitehuman · 19/07/2015 17:30

I find them tacky. And the first time I saw one it did remind me of that episode of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl where she has a client who is into sploshing. I think she sits on a giant cake in that episode!

Trash the dress bugs me too. Wedding dresses are ridiculously overpriced. I reckon it's a conspiracy by dress designers to stop second hand dresses ending up on eBay.

Doobigetta · 19/07/2015 17:33

Tacky and wasteful.

There are just too many photos of everything now, whether of the weirdly staged variety, or the "put everything on hold so I can photo it" kind. People are way too caught up in being observers of their own "celebrity" instead of just participating in life. I wonder if this will just be a blip.

Notso · 19/07/2015 17:44

I just think it's a bit forced, have fun now because I want a nice picture.
It's not the same as giving them a piece of cake at their party and taking a picture or them grabbing at the whole cake when you put it their to blow the candles out. That to me, is natural. It's spontaneous.

slithytove · 19/07/2015 20:07

So because a parent gives a baby more than a slice of cake, anything the baby does isn't spontaneous? One slice = spontaneity but any more is contrived? Seems a stretch to me.

In the same way that if I give them wooden spoons and then they "drum" with them, the spontaneity is the same.

Oh and we put his entire cake in front of him because it was his birthday. I think that's pretty normal.

slithytove · 19/07/2015 20:10

And you might say that about any formal pictures! School photos, wedding photos, christening photos, etc. It's planned, people might be better dressed or better groomed than usual - not spontaneous at all.

Yet how many pp would criticise a bride and groom for having a non spontaneous, "staged", "forced", "have fun now because I want a nice picture" of their wedding day.

Waste aside, the concept is the same.

LaurieMarlow · 19/07/2015 20:29

Slithytove, I agree with you - I think the distaste on here is a bit out of proportion

All professional photo shoots are staged and 'fake' by their very nature".

We 'stage' a lot of home produced photos anyway - blowing out the candles is a prime example, but I don't think people object to that. Your point about bridal photos is a good one.

The waste is a drop in the ocean of what most of us throw out weekly. I expect lots of posters to now tell us they throw out nada, but if that's the case they are a massive anomaly, we chuck heinous amounts of food.

My conclusion is that it symbolises/signifies wastage more strongly than it actually creates waste - and that's what people react to. But having said that, as humans we've always used excess as a way of marking celebrations. Eating ourselves into a coma in Christmas Day probably looks wasteful, tacky and disgusting from the POV of an outsider too.

And we are sniffy about new customs, especially when they come from the states.

merrymouse · 19/07/2015 20:35

It seems odd to take a cake to a photographer's studio when it is so easy to take a real photo of a child getting in a mess eating - surely it's a daily occurrence and something that can be easily captured with a phone?

Notso · 19/07/2015 21:01

No, slithytove it's nothing to do with the quantity of cake. It's having the cake for the sole purpose of smashing it up to create a photograph. Most people go to a photographers studio to do it.

Yes it's 'normal' to put the whole cake infront if the child on their birthday but usually you don't want them to wreck the cake because you want to eat it. If they grab it by mistake then you might laugh and take a picture or if you give them a slice to eat they might smush it up and again you might take a photo but I just don't see why you would want to create that on purpose.

When DS2 was 2 he fed DS3 who was 7 or 8 months a yoghurt. We filmed it because it was funny and cute but if I hadn't had a camera on that day I wouldn't then set up the whole situation to film it another day because although the children might react to the set up naturally it's just not the same as the real thing.

With regard to wedding photographs, I hate the posed ones. I was persuaded to have some as was told I'd regret not having them. They have remained on their CD since it came 7 years ago. I just don't like them.
I like the ones that were taken without people knowing they were having a picture.
The only school picture I buy are the whole class or whole school ones for my DC to remember everyone, not to display.

slithytove · 19/07/2015 21:15

Well, we managed to do it without a studio or wasting too much cake. As I said, I cut the top off it and re iced it. And the cake was for his birthday cake and for photos, and for my pleasure of making it. So dual purpose.

Doubt that makes my photos of DS and his first cake acceptable though.

Notso · 19/07/2015 21:23

If you are happy with them that's all that matters isn't it.

steppedonlego · 19/07/2015 21:27

Pictures taken in a studio by a professional turn out nicer than ones taken on a smart phone. I can't believe this requires explaining.

I like the staged pictures of my wedding, and I like the spontaneous ones. I like the staged pictures of my daughter, and the spontaneous ones.

People like different things. I can't imagine having my judgey pants on so tight that I'd call someone tacky for enjoying something harmless and different from me.

merrymouse · 19/07/2015 21:33

Pictures taken in a studio by a professional turn out nicer than ones taken on a smart phone. I can't believe this requires explaining.

The thing is they often don't.

Studio photos often look embarrassingly awful, whether they are venture style or a random high street photographer. They are exactly the kind of thing that become embarrassing family photos 20 years later because they date so badly.

slithytove · 19/07/2015 21:35

It's a shame that people are so disparaging about something innocuous which doesn't affect them a jot!

Pagwatch · 19/07/2015 21:39

It's a thread asking for opinions.
I don't like them but I'd never be rude about them in real life and I don't really care what other people do.
It's just a thread on the Internet. No one is banning them.

If we are banning stuff it would definitely be see though leggings and blokes in town with no shirt on first.

Alconleigh · 19/07/2015 21:54

Amen to that Pagwatch. Although I've been assailed by fewer horror moobs this summer, despite quite a lot of good weather. Maybe I've just got lucky.