Family Photo Ideas

October 16, 2018

One of my FAVORITE things to do and honestly, one of the reasons I ever started “blogging” was because I have this love of helping style people for their photos, especially families.

I’m not sure why or really where this passion comes from, but I LOVE it! I’m a visionary, so maybe it’s getting the vision and then seeing it come to life in the final product. Or maybe I just like to help my Mom friends out. Not sure. but I get a real joy from it!

This year I wanted to give you a few different options. I’m sharing what we wore in our recent shoot and then a few other looks I have put together in my head.

Some tips and tricks I utilize when preparing for our pictures-

I always start with my outfit. Might sound selfish, but it works. It just makes sense in my mind since I am the one putting it all together. Start with my look and then piece everyone else together from there. I typically already have a vision in my head of what I am wanting to wear, so I can then began to search for the kiddos outfits from there. This year for example, I knew I really wanted to show my “boho style” of fashion. The style I chose this year is really what I wear a lot and I wanted that to be seen. I live in my big hats during the fall, thigh high boots have become as essential as leggings, and the cute little wrap dress was super affordable and adorable.
I tend to have one main color with corresponding colors. This year my dress had multi-colors, but last year I went with a maroon dress and the accent colors were navy and mustard (see below)
Mix patterns. Once you have your main color look for plaids, stripes, polka dots, florals, etc that will accent it well. If you do one kid in plaid, don’t do the other. Try mixing it up. If one is in plaid, do the other in stripes. If you have girls, I love mixing florals and polka dots. Play around with different patterns, this keeps the photos from looking “too put together”
For Fall photos I tend to gravitate toward the more warm tones, especially if you want to use them for Christmas cards. Spring photos I like to go toward pastels. Summer, bright and fun (we rarely do summer photos)
For Ricky (my husband) he likes to wear a button up and a blazer, or a suit. He has a good collection, due to our business, so I also keep that in mind when planning. This year he just did a dark denim with a blazer he already owned. Since black was a color we had in our wardrobe we just threw a black button up under the blazer. PERFECT. And Ricky was SO happy because it required zero shopping for him! Typically that’s all I do for him. Keep a suit in mind and then if he doesn’t have a undershirt to match our “theme” I will usually buy him one from Express. (THESE are the ones he prefers)
For the kids… don’t put them in things they can’t move in, or things they don’t like. Example- I put Rush in a yellow puffer vest this year and it only lasted for like half the photos. Which I knew that might be the case, so I wasn’t frustrated by it. If your kid doesn’t like hats… don’t put him/her in a hat! This really goes for the whole crew. You want to feel confident in what you are wearing. I LOVE dresses for photos, but if you don’t… don’t wear them! I think Leggings and long tunics or sweaters are cute too for photos!
Be YOU! I think this is so important. Show your families personality and style in the photos. If you aren’t a big hat, boho lovin’ kinda gal… don’t dress like that! If you love all things glitter, throw some in the air and OWN IT GIRL! BE YOU!
Ask your photographer for the location details beforehand, I knew we would be outside this year, so the warmer tones were PERFECT! If you’re going to be indoors or have a colored back drop, you need to know ahead of time! Get as many details as you can to help give yourself a vision for what will work well with the backdrop.

I’ve created a few different options you could go with below. Scroll through the images to shop the items listed in each option.

OPTION ONE (shown above)-