What to wear for pictures

[migirl]

We're planning to have family pictures taken sometime this spring/summer, and I need some help figuring out what everyone's going to wear. I'm terrible at this kind of thing.

The photographer we're using does candid shots, so it's going to be pretty casual. We're planning to have the pictures taken outdoors, probably at a local park or the botanical gardens.

I bought DD a cotton dress with big, bold flower prints on it. It's a white dress with red/pink flowers and some navy/green accents. Very cute and fun and informal.

I was thinking my boys and DH would just wear polo shirts ... maybe red or white or navy. I guess my question is: would it be too busy if DD wore her flowery dress and one (or both) boys wore a striped shirt with the colors from her dress (like a blue and white stripe)? Or should I just stick with plain (ie, non-patterned) clothing for the rest of us?

Like I said, I'm really bad at this sort of stuff so thanks for any suggestions.

[BonBon]

I would probably stick with plain. That's always the easiest.

ETA: I wish you were on fb so we can see said pics after they're taken. (hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

[houseelf]

I googled family portraits to get ideas. In the past, we have done white, chambray blue, navy and completely uncoordinated dress clothes. We're pretty pasty white, so I always have to take into consideration what colors might yield that freshly embalmed look.

For our most recent picture, I was going to dress DD and myself in hot pink with the boys in blue. After looking at group photos with one bright color however, I realized that is all you see in the photo is that piece of clothing to the exclusion of everything else. Further, while I had originally intended for everyone to wear khaki pants, I realized that jeans give a much cleaner line and hide a few sins. Let's just say that the adults in this family do NOT need anything drawing attention to that area. Personally, I like some amount of coordination, but not total, if that makes any sense. To answer your specific question, I would not do both floral and stripes. You want the focus to be the faces and relationships. I do think that placing your infant daughter in the boldest pattern makes sense because she will be so tiny next to big adults. Finally, enjoy dressing everyone the way you want to now, because there will be opinions that do not match your desires down the road. DH and my oldest son were not as compliant as I would have hoped. DH insisted on wearing his comfortable "Dad" jeans and DS wouldn't wear a sweater vest so I had to find something that both matched and met his tween sensibilities of fashion. Still, I'm glad that we had it done as it had been over five years since our last portrait.

Finally, we need to see the results! I agree with Bon Bon!

[GreyhoundsRUs]

If you are doing a lot of outside pictures, I'd go with muted neutrals for sure! Beiges, browns, olive greens, etc. Like Kelly said, you want YOU to stand out - not the clothes! Wear clothes that flatter your figures and lives! Have fun!

[SuzySunshine]

Is her dress mostly white? That is what your eye will be drawn to. My photographer friend says either everyone wears white or no one does because like in wedding pictures you're drawn to the white because that is the brightest color. If the flowers cover most of the white I think it would be fine but I agree that with her in that and the boys in stripes would be to much.

Family photo clothes are always hard - we're having our photographer come here in May and do photos in our favorite places so that we can have an album of memories from Rochester but I have NO idea what we're going to wear.

Jane -

We always do in the park/not a lot of posed, and I always go for very casual. Coordinated w/o looking like I was really coordinating???

We're in their pricing pdf

/www.parigostudios.com/2010portraits.pdf

and then this is the slideshow from our shoot last May

http://vimeo.com/12446648

For the most recent one, I went as casual as to let the boys be in "Life is Good" t-shirts that were both blue. Prior to that I'd done polos w/either big stripes (not too busy), or solids.

[Thirteen]

For things to avoid, check out : http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/


I personally like the "coordinated without being obviously matchy-matchy" style. YMMV.

[migirl]

Yes, I also prefer the "coordinated but not matchy-matchy" look ... I'm just not sure how to pull it off since fashion is not exactly my, uh, strong suit.

Okay, we'll nix the striped shirts for the boys and think about how to coordinate colors. Probably going to be solid-colored polo shirts for the guys and I-don't-know-what for me.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Vanquisher]

I am also not good at this! I was going to use some google inspiration:

http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl...f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

[MrsK]

On the "coordinated but not matchy" theme, how do you do this for boys? My brother has two boys and always dresses them the same for photos -- polo shirts, same color. It's so boring. For girls, clothes come in "collections" where you can mix and match tops and bottoms or get similar dresses of diffent colors. But it seems to be harder to achieve coordinated but not matchy for boys. I wouldn't want to dress my boys the same but I wouldn't want them to look to busy either. Aside from solid shirts of different colors, I'm having a hard time coming up with ideas.

I alternate or compliment. If Jacob wears a blue polo w/big white stripes, Quinn might wear a white polo w/blue stripes -- but not the exact same stripes. I wouldn't put both of them in the same color polo or sweater, but make sure they go together. In the first link I posted, I had one boy wearing a white polo w/blue stripes, the other wearing a blue polo, and dh wearing a blue polo. I wore a blue shirt w/white stripes (but totally different kind of stripe -- not at all busy), and Mattie wore a magenta "Spendid" dress in a tone that went well w/the Navy running through everyone else's clothes.

How old are your kids? I've found Gymboree to be the answer to my family picture prayers, LOL. They usually have a line with a ton of coordinating items for both boys and girls, so I figure out the three kids and then add DH and myself into the mix.

We did a black/gray/white theme for our last set of family pics and they looked really nice. We used some prints/stripes, but nothing really bold. For example, DH wore a charcoal-gray v-neck sweater with a black pinstriped shirt collar showing. Just enough to add some visual interest without drawing the eye to any one person.

[MrsK]

How old are your kids? I've found Gymboree to be the answer to my family picture prayers, LOL. They usually have a line with a ton of coordinating items for both boys and girls, so I figure out the three kids and then add DH and myself into the mix.

We did a black/gray/white theme for our last set of family pics and they looked really nice. We used some prints/stripes, but nothing really bold. For example, DH wore a charcoal-gray v-neck sweater with a black pinstriped shirt collar showing. Just enough to add some visual interest without drawing the eye to any one person.

Right now, I have one boy 14mo. But this summer I'll have two boys, 18mo and newborn.

[HouseofWool]

Did I somehow miss that BK2 is a boy? Congrats!