It’s fall, which means everyone is looking for excuses to bundle under warm blankets and wear scarves out! Since fall is the prime time for family portrait sessions for those Christmas cards, we’re sharing our top tricks and tips for family portraits. Read on for more…

What to Wear

Traditionally, everyone wore the same outfit or the same white tops for a family portrait session. What we’ve been seeing (and what we encourage families to do now!) is to dress cohesively instead of matching. You can choose a color palette (neutrals, for example) and have everyone dress within that color palette. This allows for each individual to express themselves in their clothing while maintaining diversity in the group!

We also recommend staying away from busy patterns, logos, and wearing stark white!

Consider Your Backdrop

It’s so important to consider what the portrait location is when you’re planning out what to wear! If it’s a beach setting, match the beach with flowy dresses and casual clothes. If it’s the forest like Garland Ranch, you dress more rustic. Looking like you’re integrated into the backdrop location is key!

Photographing The Kids

We really want this experience to be stress-free! We encourage kids to eat before the session begins and to bring a lot of snacks to the location. If there’s a particular toy that grabs a baby’s attention, be sure to bring it! For younger kids, we will do our best to photograph the kids in the beginning, so that we’re catching them when they’re in the best mood.

Order Of Events

We begin with the larger groups first for family portraits before breaking it down to different combinations. For a family of four, we’d photograph the entire family, then mom with one child, dad with one child, kids individually, then mom and dad alone.

We love capturing the candid and fun photos at the end of the session too.

Summary

Family portraits can be stressful to prepare for, but we really want to make it a seamless experience. We will do our best to use our expertise to ensure you get the best photos!

We’d love to photograph you! Please reach out here.