New Family Photos! Plus A Little About Choosing the Outfits for Our Session

Woo-hoo! We got our family pictures back! And, I LOVE them! I’m so excited to have beautiful family photographs to display when we’re finally settled into our new home in Florida. Our photographer was Brandi of Brandi Thompson Photography, and she is simply amazing! She does such a great job of showing families actually interacting and enjoying each other. There’s so much life in her photography!

Before I go any further, you really have to click on the images to see the larger versions.  The small photo size that my blog allows, simply does not do justice to how gorgeous this photography is!

Having professional photographs done is an investment, and I really wanted to do everything that I could to make sure that I would be thrilled with the pictures.  Because there are so many of us, I knew that our clothes would really have to work well together.  A few weeks before our session, I decided on three primary colors to use for our clothing, then I set out to make sure that everything coordinated nicely without looking matchy-matchy. I chose the colors red, white and blue, allowing multiple shades of blue so that we didn’t look overly patriotic. (Of course, we are very patriotic, so if it comes out that way, it’s really okay!) As I found fabrics that I liked for the clothing that I planned to sew or ran across clothing items that I thought might work for the rest of us, I threw it onto a design board.  It really helped me to better visualize how it all worked together. Here’s what our final design board looked like:
(My top, tank and skirt and the girls’ dresses are all from Old Navy, as well as Sean’s red and white striped tee.  Ray’s blue polo came from JCPenney.  We found Allen’s red striped polo at Macy’s.  The flowered fabrics are organic cotton from the Chick Chick collection by Nancy Mims for Robert Kaufman.  The red plaid fabric is from the Stars & Stripes Collection from Deena Rutter for Riley Blake Designs, and the solid red fabric is Kona Cotton also from Robert Kaufman.)

I didn’t stop with the clothes, though. I wanted everything to work together, so I coordinated our shoes, too! (Is that going a bit overboard?)
(The three youngest boys wore Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars in red and dazzling blue.  Sean’s shoes are navy blue Toms.  Ray’s denim Vans and Samantha’s blue Candie’s sandals came from Kohls.  Morgan’s white sandals can be found at Target, and Katie’s at Payless Shoes.)

I think the end result was definitely worth putting in a little planning time! We’re going to be looking at these pictures for many years. What do you think?

You can find lots more pictures and the larger versions of these, too, over on Brandi’s Blog: The “F” Family – Fun Frisco Family Session. While you’re there, be sure to check out the rest of her incredible photography, as well!