This year for family pictures we decided to do a few things differently. For one! We actually paid a real photographer to take our pictures! Usually we try to do it ourselves…which doesn’t  always work out the way we hoped…okay pretty much never does. Two! We decided to do them in our home! Which was just slightly stressful, because we had to not only make sure everyone looked cute, but that our home was also clean….a hefty challenge all on it’s own. Three! We decided to do some holiday themed lifestyle pictures. Which I think turned out to be my favorite EVER. No posing or all of us having to look right at the camera for each picture, just being at home doing our thang! And finally number four! We went with a film photographer. I LOVE the look of film, it is dreamy.

Our photographer Carolee Beckham was AWESOME! She even talked my four year old out of a major melt down….I should have paid extra for that!

Here are a few of my favorite from our photography session.

Here are a few tips for you if you want to do something similar.

1. Get your house all cleaned up and decorated a few days before to reduce stress! Your house does not have to look magazine worthy to you to end up looking fabulous in pictures. Your photographer will help with that.
2. Just decorate one room! Don’t worry about the whole house yet. You just need one holiday spot to get the pictures you need.
3. Pay attention to when your house has the best and brightest lighting inside the room you want pictures in, so you can tell your photographer when to come.
4. Pull out some holiday books and do some easy holiday activities. Like putting a star on the tree and adding a few Christmas tree decorations.
5. Have fun!! We usually kinda hate family pictures, someone always gets frustrated or throws a fit. We had a talk with our kids before the photographer arrived that we were going to HAVE FUN! We didn’t want fake smiles or to end this whole thing with all of us irritated. We really wanted to just have a good time together and capture that.
6. Find a photographer that is good with kids and families.
7. Find a photographer that fits your style!

You can find out more about our photographer Carolee by clicking HERE. (She is wonderful)

Merry Christmas!!