A guest blog post from Erin Marie Photography
Holiday minis are a big tradition here at Erin Marie Photography. We not only take our own family photos every year, but we also have many clients that come to us every year to take their family photos. So, we have taken all the things we have learned over the years and put it in an easy-to-follow guide!
Finding the perfect photographer
There are many different photographers that do holiday minis in our area, so sometimes it can be hard to choose the best one. We believe the most important things to consider, especially if you have kids or animals, is how well the photographer can photograph a moving subject!
Another important factor should be whether or not the session will take place indoors or outdoors. This is especially important here in the winters of New England! And finally, always pick a photographer that shows samples of their setup. This is helpful for many reasons. One, this will help determine how well children will do for the session, i.e. we always like to have interactive stuff for the kids to hold or play with during their session. This year we had our rocking horse for kids to ride, and it was a big hit!
Picking family outfits
To match or not to match is always the first question you should think about before picking outfits. This is also one of the biggest reasons that we always do a sneak peek of our setup. Some years are laid back like the year we did hot campfire. But we have other years, like this year where our setup is a little dressier.
So, the best advice I can give you is taking a look at the setup and try and determine if you would like to be dressy or wear Pjs, because most minis sessions do not allow for outfit changes. If you have kids, it's also important to consider how the kids will be in a dressy outfit vs pjs. I have had parents tell me right from the start we wear pjs cause its easier with the kids.
When picking dressy outfits, we usually tell our clients to pick 3 colors and match outfits with those 3 colors, not necessarily wearing the exact same thing. However, if our clients want to wear pjs, then matching pjs are totally ok. We even have a few clients that wear matching pjs sets with their dogs!
Choosing the right holiday card
The final step of your holiday minis is choosing the perfect holiday card to send out to family and friends! We may be a little partial, but we recommend all our clients use Nations Photo Lab for all their holiday gifts. Even for our own cards and gifts, we use them as well. The quality and care they put into every photo is just unmatched!
The final and most important recommendation we can give is to have fun. Sometimes I think people forget that above all you are making a memory with family and sometimes the photos don't have to be perfect to have created a perfect memory!
Happy Holidays from our family to yours!