Baby Ayaan is ONE! Ayaan and his parents celebrated his first birthday with a magical Harry Potter inspired cake smash in my Saratoga Springs studio. His parents are big Harry Potter fans, and as true Gryffindors, they couldn’t resist decorating their baby’s nursery with a Harry Potter theme. It was what inspired the theme into his first birthday cake smash portraits. Oddly enough, with nearly 13 years of experience with cake smashes, this was my first Harry Potter request!

I absolutely loved pulling this all together using books and items from the family’s nursery, along with a gorgeous custom backdrop that perfectly suits my light & airy tastes. One of everyone’s favorite elements of the setup was that thanks to the design of the backdrop, it actually looks like Harry is flying over Ayaan’s head in a few of the portraits!

When it was time to eat, Ayaan took a little extra coaxing to dig into his cake. He was most fascinated by the shiny confetti on the floor! Parents, I promise - no matter what happens, there will always be cute portraits. Throughout the session, we were thrilled that Ayaan kept his sorting hat on his head the whole time - which none of us expected to happen. His parents were even more excited when he let us try the glasses on him – which lasted a whole .5 second! Despite how quickly it went, he was so cute. I had a blast pulling together this setup for such a sweet family and I hope these will be magical memories to look back on for years to come.