I really love the tradition of getting family photos taken every year. I know not everyone enjoys getting their picture taken but I read somewhere that photos are really for the ones left behind and that stuck with me. While they bring me so much joy to look at and display around our home now, I hope someday our kids, grandkids, and so on will enjoy looking at them, too.
We just got these back from Kristy of Glory and Green (Kristy, I can’t thank you enough!) and I cannot believe how they turned out considering how wild the kids were that night and that Joseph was carsick almost the whole way there. We took these on October 1st and the weather was perfect. It was supposed to rain all day and somehow held off, giving us some gorgeous clouds in the process.
There are so many ways you can go with family photos and I think it’s really important to remember to just have fun with them. While I do like to wear/buy/save special dresses for special occasions, I don’t like to buy pieces for specific events to only wear them once. You can totally work with what you have- I did! The only items that I actually bought for this session were Amelia’s boots and that’s only because I realized very late that Joseph had grown out of his from last year and had to size up… as in two days before our photoshoot! We already had everything else. I bought this dress on super sale at the end of the summer because I just loved it and wanted to save it for a special occasion and it worked perfectly for this!
Almost every year I have the kids wear their Hunter Boots for our family photos (with the exception of the beach!). They’re timeless, easy, and work for pretty much any terrain. I buy a new pair in a classic color every year for Amelia and they get passed down to Joseph and it’s been really fun to see the progression of the boots in our photos! This year, Amelia got to pick her own color, though, because Joseph was ready for the next size already!
I rarely buy outfits specifically for family photos but I do buy special dresses when I find them, particularly if they’re on sale. I got his RHODE dress for a steal at the end of the summer and it just so happened to work perfectly for this occasion. While there are a few “rules” for getting the best photos, I don’t subscribe to the mentality that you can only wear neutrals and think a bold color or print feels extra special. I also think longer dresses tend to photograph better, so I try to stick to those for myself.
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