To make the best of your session, here’s a quick guide of family session styling tips to get you started. Once you book, you will receive a more detailed guide. Plus, I’m always available to talk through outfit selections. But I believe it good to have some base knowledge to start when it comes to styling your family session.
Family session styling tips you can easily apply to your next session.
1. Wear clothing that makes you feel comfortable.
I always suggest wearing dresses or skirts for my mamas. This allows you to move easily and looks amazing on camera. If you have little ones, I might ask you to kneel to their level, pick them up, or sit on the ground to play with them. Will you be comfortable in your clothing to do those things? If the answer is yes, you’re good to go!
In my experience, every woman, regardless of her shape has an area of her body that she’s self-conscious about, so recognizing what area that is in advance is key. Choosing something flattering and comfortable is the best way to make sure you love your photos.
Pro Tip: There is no such thing as being too dressed up.
2. Don’t match, coordinate colors in each others outfits
The goal in coordinating family session styling is to visually break up the colors so you’re not all wearing the same color on top and bottom. The more you mix up these colors the better it will look all together. The best way to do this is to plan a dominant color for each family member then tie in coordinating accent colors.
In this example, mom’s dominant color is tan with gold accents, dad’s dominant color would be the gold tan pants with blue and brown accents, baby boy’s dominant color is blue with brown accents and baby girl’s ruffle dress is dominant brown with gold accents.
Don’t worry, I’ll give plenty of examples of this in my style guide.
3. Choose soft tones and neutrals
For timeless photos, I recommend choosing softer, lighter tones and neutrals and avoiding bright, bold colors. Soft and neutral colors fit beautifully into a natural environment, and can easily be paired in so many different ways. Also, keep your home or where you plan to display your photos in mind when selecting color palates. I’ve found that you can never go wrong with neutral colors like creams, tans, leather brown, light greys, and whites.
Pro Tip: Bring a backup outfit or items to layer. Extra layers can help provide a second look or add a different vibe to your session.
4. Stay away from logos and busy patterns
I completely understand having a little one obsessed with cartoons and a husband that dresses in athletic brands or sports teams 90% of the time. But this is an investment in how you want to remember your family in this stage of life, the focus should be on your family and the connection between you all. Logos and busy patterns will distract the eye and take away from your portraits.
