To dislike the new cake smash photo trend?

[Tissunnyupnorth]

Recently I have seen many ads for a new style of photo shoot. Young child is placed in front of a very large cake and basically told to smash it up, smear it anywhere and basically do what the hell they want with it, whilst being photographed.

Am I being a killjoy? Is this cute? Just find the whole thing pretty distasteful.

I think it's meant to represent a child being exited to tuck in but c'mon...

I don't understand the need for it myself. We got a lovely number 1 cake made for lo's 1st birthday party, and we done the traditional candle lit and pictures of lo with the cake. On the actual day we got a small rooms cake from a supermarket and did the same.
I don't get the point of smashing up a cake, just for pictures. Sorry if I offend anyone, just my opinion

My logic or lack of is about the same as butterflies. I mean, we waste shit tons of food and non-food stuff in this country, but this just seems so blatant somehow.

All that wasted cake.

Just YouTubed this to try to give it the benefit of the doubt. Silly, and contrived. Not one baby did it themselves, had to be coached to. Grim.

It's awful in so many ways.

I have never heard of this

It's silly.

In the US you get a free matching smash cake if you order a first birthday cake. It's totally the norm here. I've been here two years and I still can't get over the food waste that they consider completely normal.

I think I thought it was new as I haven't seen it anywhere before. Suddenly in the last month I've had a flyer, ad in two local shops and all over social media.

Each to their own of course, but as Rubyrose says, it's just so bloody gluttonous and weird. Do people hang something like this on their wall, totally oblivious to the blatant wastage image they are projecting? Or maybe I sound a bit up myself.

Tissunnyupnorth I learned about it from LadySqwuak's thread, so you're not alone.

My niece did an inpromptu smash in a very posh tea room - the type that had a trolley ladened with goodies that they wheel to your table.

She was little and fast and just dived at a large cream cake and ended up hands right in the cake up to her elbows.This was over 25 years ago and my sister is still too ashamed to go back.

^ See now, THAT would be a cute photo and anecdote. But doing it deliberately isn't cute, somehow.

My SiL did this for her dd 'so 1st birthday. Really tacky and contrived pics of niece sitting next to a cake. And not smashing it. Then pics of her in a bath. She paid hundreds for these pics.
I just don't like the concept and the pics are crap! Each to their own but try not to waste food! I mean it's cake!

Yes exactly. It's like the photos where people pretend to be having fun, just for the photo. Photos are meant to capture the scenes that are already happening!

I'm not a massive fan, but a friend suggested a joint one for our NCT group. It was less than £15 for the shoot, cake and a disk of copyright free photos each.

The kids ignored the cake, so the adults ate it, no waste at ours lol!

I called it vulgar on here once. Quite a few people told me IWBU.

I think there's nothing wrong with this it's personal choice. We done one. Not much cake was wasted my dd ate some and we took the rest home. I love our photos, they were done by a friend.

I can't stand them, they all look the same so it's just boring. Like those photo booth things that are every wedding or those awful pictures of crumpled up newborns stuffed in a woollen thing.

I don't know why people want photographs of forced fun than photographs of actual fun.

It is a very vulgar trend

With more and more people turning to food banks, it's obscene.

Indeed. Some people struggling to afford a birthday cake when others think hey let's smash one up for £100. Just awful.

Naff and pointless.

I agree with those who've pointed out that the logic isn't really there. Yes, it's gratuitously wasteful, gleefully and disgustingly so. But in the grand scheme of things, it's relatively inconsequential. I waste very little food, but I've flown back from holiday this year - that kind of dwarfs the food thing.

And yet... It is just yuck. And so contrived. I keep getting FB ads for "photo shoots of your newborn wearing a tutu whilst sleeping in a flowerpot" type ideas too, which are equally un-cute in their contrivedness.

And, yeah: weird to teach your child to deliberately make a massive mess with food just for the hell of it. I did BLW, I coped with mess, but DS knew what to do and it would seem to me really really weird to suddenly confuse a baby by encouraging them to smash a cake. "Aw, look, he's got yoghurt on his nose and he's having so much fun with it" makes much more sense - it's accidental, affectionate, and a photo captures an actual memory not some weird fake shit.

This has somehow passed me by, so I googled - how extremely contrived. Loads of features about 'tips' to do a great 'cake smash photo shoot', and different studios offering them. None are actual birthday party, natural pictures, just toddlers done up in stupid outfits to match with ghastly looking garish cakes, and twee / naff props / décor.

Not my taste.

And it is wasteful of food.

The need to perform everything in Fb: very tiresome.

I think it's very distasteful. A friend organised one for her DD's first birthday - the child wasn't interested in smashing the cake so she had to break it up herself and smear it around, which in my opinion made the whole thing even worse.

Oh I hate those! A woman I know had a lovely cake done for her dd's first birthday and did a cake smash photo shoot. Total waste of a stunning cake, she tagged the baker in a post on Facebook thanking her, I would have just been gutted if I'd made that, the baker had done such a lovely job.

I don't like food waste anyway in a world where people are starving. Also, who does that to a perfectly good cake?? Madness!