What to Wear for Family Photos

This weekend we took our family Christmas card photos. The past few years, we have worked with a local photographer whom I adore. This year, though, I just couldn’t get my act together! Scheduling with her, choosing a location, and figuring out what to wear for family photos seemed too daunting and I kept putting it off. So we decided to try to take the pictures ourselves, and you know what? They turned out great!

Here are a few tips for figuring out what to wear for family photos:

Choose 2-3 unifying colors, and make sure each family member is wearing 1-2 of those colors. If you try to use more colors than that, the overall look can quickly become too busy and distracting.
Non matching patterns are ok, as long as the unifying colors are present. As you can see, all the men in my family are wearing patterned shirts, and yet it works because unifying colors of blue and magenta bring the looks together so that they are complimentary, not competing.
Start with your own outfit, and go from there. If you are like me, you are somewhat picky about what you would like to be photographed in! It is easier to find looks I like for my husband and sons, so I can often tailor their outfits to work around what I would like to wear. I don’t always follow this guideline, though. This year, my color palette inspiration was the magenta jeans I had just purchased from Gap Kids for my boys. But if you are having trouble figuring out where to start, I recommend starting with your own look!
Mix it up a bit! Putting everyone in all solid colors or being too matchy-matchy can be boring to look at. Although both boys own the magenta jeans, I decided that only one should wear them to keep things interesting.
Have fun! In the end, you decided to take these photos to capture the faces of the people you love, not the outfits they were wearing that day. You want the looks to be cohesive, but really the main goal is to have everyone looking at the camera and smiling! If you end up with just one great picture, I consider that a victory!

Once I decided to use magenta as one of the theme colors, I thought of this Lush swing dress from Nordstrom that I had in my closet. It is loose fitting but not too boxy, so it’s easy to wear and flattering. It is from last year, but I linked a similar one from Nordstrom Rack below. I added the blue necklace to coordinate with our other theme color, and black shoes because my husband and one son were wearing black. My older son only had his school tennis shoes available. Oops. Had I planned ahead, I would have bought him something else since I usually like him to have a nicer pair for church, holidays, and occasions such as this. Oh well! Considering I planned the outfits a couple of hours before we took the pictures, I’m pretty happy with how much we managed to coordinate!

I am happy to have this crossed off my holiday to do list! How was your weekend? Do you take family photos every year? I hope this helps you get inspired about what to wear for family photos!