As a lifestyle photographer, I love getting to work with a wide range of clients to document the ordinary and extraordinary everyday moments that make up a life.

My lifestyle work includes individuals with beloved pets, couples celebrating an anniversary, parents and their newborn baby, partners who aren’t married and want to document their daily life together, and full family portraits that span three generations.

I love that my lifestyle sessions capture families and homes in all their forms, and my favorite thing about these sessions is documenting the beauty of what family and home looks like at a particular moment in time.

As I'm planning these sessions, at some point in the planning process I often get the same question: what should we wear? This summer, I shared my top 10 tips for what to wear to an engagement session, and those tips apply well to individuals or couples planning a lifestyle session.

But what about when you're choosing outfits for a family? For lifestyle portraits that include 3 or more people, it makes sense to wonder how my suggestions change when you're planning a wardrobe that works for the whole family.

To answer this question, I’ve compiled my top 10 wardrobe planning tips for families. While there is truly no one right way to dress for a family session, as it’s always up to you and your partner/parents/kids to decide what feels right, I offer these 10 tips as a starting place to guide and inspire you before your photoshoot.

Top 10 wardrobe planning tips for a family session:

1. Imagine you’re going to an event

As you start to plan for your upcoming family session, here’s my universal biggest tip for choosing outfits: stop thinking that you’re choosing an outfit for a photoshoot and instead imagine that you are getting ready for an event.

Imagine you’re getting dressed for a family outing to a pumpkin patch, you all are attending a wedding, or you’re heading out for a weekend hike. For each of these events, you and your family members would probably dress to a similar level of fanciness, and you wouldn’t match perfectly but you would coordinate and make sense together while each wearing your own style.

While it might feel daunting to dress for a photoshoot, you definitely know how to get dressed for an afternoon outing to the zoo or to attend brunch with your in-laws, so conceptualizing it this way can help turn photoshoot wardrobe planning into something you feel confident about.

2. Avoid too much matching

While some of the families I work with want their outfits to coordinate, I find it helpful to avoid too much matching as a family and instead opt for wardrobe choices that feel more natural and storytelling. Wearing the same color/pattern of clothing or wearing clothing that hits your bodies in the same place can move the attention away from your smiling faces and onto your outfits instead.

For example, if two adults or kids are both wearing jeans and a solid color t-shirt and the shirt meets the jeans in the same spot on both your bodies, then when you stand side by side this can make a distracting horizontal line in the portrait.

Instead, think about combining different clothing lengths, patterns, and lines: if one of you is wearing a solid color t-shirt and jeans, one of you could wear jeans and a flannel, and one or two of you could swap the jeans for a fun flowy skirt or layer a jacket over your shirt.

If you really want a cohesive look or feel worried about your outfits clashing, jump to tip #5 to learn about my favorite color suggestions for group portraits.

3. Include favorite layers, patterns, & textures

I love to encourage folks to incorporate layers, patterns, and texture into their photoshoot wardrobe, as they can bring unique versatility and personality into your portraits.

Fun layers and accessories can include patterned shoes, a favorite leather or jean jacket, jewelry, belts, hats, etc! Try to choose different interesting elements between each of your family members (so don’t all wear flannel shirts and jeans) but choose items that reflect each of your styles. I especially love incorporating fun accessories for kids like a cute headband, colorful boots, or a hat.

Patterns are awesome in photos! A lot of us have been told not to wear patterns in pictures, but I totally disagree – if you or your kids love to wear patterns in regular life, definitely include patterns in your family session outfit. That said, in order to keep a pattern from becoming the dominant focus point of the portrait, it can be helpful to vary the size and scale of patterns.
For example, for a family of four: one person could wear a small-scale pattern on a shirt under a sweater, another could wear a large-scale pattern on a dress, and the other two could stick to solid colors or solid tones with a lot of texture (see the next tip). Varying those patterns will help bring visual balance to the portraits while also letting personality shine through.
Textures also bring life to photos and help them feel like a real outfit instead of a photoshoot uniform. Between your family members, try to incorporate multiple textures: this could mean denim, soft t-shirt cotton, flowing lightweight fabrics, heavyweight linen, silky shirts, tweed jackets, knit sweaters, etc.

4. Colors to avoid

I usually recommend avoiding neon colors – they can photograph a little harshly. Beyond that, there aren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’ colors for pictures, but I do encourage thinking about what colors will show up in the setting of your pictures, and try to avoid choosing colors that will blend in too much. In a pine forest, try to avoid dressing solely in browns and greens; in the snow, try to avoid dressing in all-white.

5. My favorite colors for photos

Instead of primary colors, my favorite colors for pictures are either muted or rich earthy tones (think terra cotta instead of fire engine red, a muted olive green instead of kelly green, or rich mustard instead of canary yellow). I’m also a big fan of neutrals in pictures (whites, creams, charcoals, blacks). The clothing colors don’t have to coordinate, but it can be helpful to have a balance of brighter and more neutral colors between your family members.

For families that want a cohesive look or are drawn to something more matchy, I recommend choosing a color temperature (like cool tones or warm tones) and choosing if you want to go for more muted or brighter colors. That gives you a palette to work with, and I suggest wearing a variety of light/dark shades from that palette and mix in a few neutrals.

For example, if you opted for muted cool colors, you could mix airy pale turquoise, deep olive green, light gray, and dark charcoal gray. If you opt for brighter warm colors, you could mix a lighter terra cotta, deep rich mustard, bright coral, balanced with some white and cream.

6. Avoid outfits with words or logos

While there are always exceptions, I generally recommend avoiding articles of clothing that can draw the gaze away from the focal point: you and your people!

7. Decide where you want to be on the casual-fancy spectrum

There’s no wrong decision here, but it’s helpful to consider whether you want family portraits that feel fancy, casual, or somewhere in-between. What tone do you want your family portraits to capture? Do you want portraits that feel easygoing, casual, and everyday? Do you want them to feel more dressed-up and elegant? Or do you want them somewhere in the middle?

While it is an option to bring multiple outfits and do a clothing change part way through, most of the families I work with find it easier and less stressful to stick with one outfit if there are kids involved. Ultimately, you know yourself and your family best, so if an outfit change sounds more fun than cumbersome, that can be a great choice too.

8. Consider the season

Your portraits will feel more natural and cohesive if you choose outfits in line with the season your family session takes place in. This tip applies more for folks who opt for outdoor portraits, but even if we’re inside, it feels authentic to have your outfits align with the seasonal feeling of the setting you’re in. This doesn’t mean you have to wear a parka if it’s winter in Minnesota, but maybe skip the tank top in January and opt for a sweater instead.

9. Consider the setting

As you’re thinking about seasons, it can also be helpful to think about the setting where your family portraits will be taken in. For example, if you are planning an indoor photoshoot at your home it makes sense to choose an everyday wardrobe that aligns with what you’d wear around the house or at a friend’s house. Having your kids wearing a coat or mittens may feel a bit out of place in front of your fireplace, but it’d make sense at the arboretum in the late fall! If you opt for outdoor portraits, anything goes. Casual or fancy outfits can work well with a nature filled landscape as your backdrop.

10. Wear what you feel great in

There can be pressure when planning a family session to feel like you and your kids “should” wear a certain type of outfit, but I encourage you to send those “shoulds” out the window! Skip the sweater that looks nice but always makes you or your kids itchy, and wear what you all feel comfortable, confident, and yourselves in.