How to Take Great Family Photos (even after a giant fight with your spouse)

It’s 2 hours before we’re set to meet our photographer at the park and have our first family photos taken (yes, I said FIRST family photos and yes, my oldest is almost 6.  I suck).

Gabe keeps aggressively casually asking me what we’re supposed to wear and I keep telling him it doesn’t matter — that I don’t want matchy-matchy or themey-themey photos.  After a while he begins to realize that I don’t have a grand plan for us to all wear white shirts and blue jeans, or for us to be in pajamas with our names embroidered on them and even though he’s sorta kinda trying not to show it, this fact is internally causing him to lose his shit.

He shifts strategy and starts insisting gently but firmly suggesting we choose a color palette.  Everyone must wear blue.  Or everyone should be in 50 shades of gray.  (What’s my safe word?)

I tell him to chillax and that I want everyone to just wear what they like and think looks good on them.

I believe he mumbles the word “stupid” to describe my plan (or lack thereof) but he’s smart enough not to repeat it in an intelligible way.

His mouth starts to do that thing where it goes from regular old relaxed lips to a thin, fully pressurized pink line as we chaotically rush around trying to do last minute things like get a shoe on a toddler who is never still for 2 seconds and put on our unmatching shirts in shades that dare not be seen together.

And we’re running late because, ya know, we have kids and that’s how it goes.

We make it into the car and the kids are being very, very good.  But Gabe is being very, very bad.  He puts his elbow on the passenger window, leans his head onto it and repeatedly sighs.  Heavily.

As we pull up to the park, I ask him to please just relax — that it’s not just that big of a deal.

We step out of the car and I start to scan the park for the photographer, stressed because we’re late and because my diva husband is unhappy with wardrobe.

Once more, I say, “Can you please just relax?”

And then he says it and while I can’t remember word for word, it goes something like this.

“We can talk about this later but I’m not happy with your lack of preparation for this.  If this is how I’m going to spend my evening, then it should turn out to be productive and that means we should get pictures that are USABLE and these are going to suck because we don’t look like we all belong together.”

Oh hell no, he didn’t.

Yep, yep.  He did.

Oh hey, there’s the photographer…let’s go have some happy family photos taken now.

And here’s the miracle that is a good photographer. We.  Still.  Had.  Fun.

No really.  We did.  And we totally got USABLE (beautiful, amazing) family photos even though I had the nerve to wear lavender when everyone else wore blue.

Let’s face it.  This isn’t the first almost-disaster-of-a-family-photo-shoot story you’ve heard, is it?  I’ve heard TONS of them.  For some reason, these things just bring out the worst in people.

But our photog Stephen has figured out how to take the stress away, make it fun and then blind you with his talent.  The end result?  Amazing documented memories to keep and share with all the people who love you.

Here’s how it went down.  We walked around the park, the kids played on the playground and sweet, easy-going Stephen just followed us around snapping photos.  It was hard for me to believe they’d turn out so well, seeing as how we almost forgot he was there but you can see for yourself how beautiful he made us look.

It was effortless and as fun as it looked.

So my best advice to you is to have an ill-timed tiff with your husband or significant other, make sure your outfits are heinously unmatched outfits (love you, honey!) and most importantly, make sure you pick a photographer who will make you comfortable and make sure you loosen up and just have fun, despite your lack of white shirts and denim bottoms.

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