Super Mario Bros Cake Smash | Philadelphia Photographer

I don’t know if you can fully appreciate how exciting this was for me as both a child of the 80s/90s and a sibling of one of the most rabid Nintendo gamers to grace this planet, but please believe me when I tell you, this cake smash was bucket list for me. Many years ago I saw someone do a session for their Nintendo loving sibling that was Ms. Pac Man themed and since then, I’ve wanted to do a themed session that was video game culture from A Certain Era. Plus, let’s be honest - I had just done the Lisa Frank themed session and I was feeling all nostalgic for my childhood things.

So, when I got the inquiry to do a Super Mario Bros cake smash, it was like the gods were smiling on me. I immediately remembered that I had seen these polka dotted mushrooms of various sizes at Hobby Lobby and ran to grab them. I knew they’d be good. I made a mental list of the most important elements and characters and got to work making my cutouts. My process is focused and nerdy.

It didn’t require a ton of back and forth with mom, which makes it a little more fun for her in my opinion. She comes with the idea and then walks in to see it brought to life. I LOVE THAT PART.

She also came with the Mario costume which I didn’t know about, or if I did, I didn’t know how cute it was going to be. LOOK AT HIM OMG right?

And, honestly? It only gets cuter from here.

I made sure to take photos of the set once it was up but not finalized to ask my Video Game Consultant ie my brother who really, really loved Zelda and all things Super Mario Bros for his input and critique. He helped me to make some adjustments and said things about authenticity that I, being less versed than he, were important in ways I didn’t understand but made the changes anyway. As one does!

This guy was the smiliest guy - and had himself a blast! Luckily for me, mom brought along a wrangler because this boy has been on the move for months! He could get anywhere and he surely did! I was happy to have someone to help us bring him back to the spotlight.
I love how this came out. I love bringing someone’s passion and or idea to life. If you have an idea you want to talk about, click here to get started. I love challenges and ideas that get my creative muscles flexing and working!