How to Manage Family Portrait Day

Family Portrait day can be stressful.  Many people feel the experience is similar to going to the dentist.  There are ways, however, to make the day go much easier.  We want the family portrait experience to bring your family closer together and to be an experience you want to share over and over.  Here are 6 tips to help your family portrait experience be as easy as possible. First of all, get it into your mind that you need to simplify the day as much as possible. We have 2 main goals we want you to focus on.  Remember, if you do nothing else except for these two things than we can and will take care of the rest.

1. Arrive on time ready to go by your session time
2. Come happy ready to enjoy the experience

Here are a few suggestions that can help you achieve these two goals.

Get off Work

Remember our goal is to arrive on time and to be happy. Getting ready for a family portrait session can be stressful. It is extra stressful when you don’t have enough time to get things done. It may be worth it to arrange work schedules to allow extra time for all that follows.

Naps

Probably the hardest variable to control is how tired your baby is. There is a fine line between being rested and just waking up from a nap. We suggest letting your child have a nap if they need but make sure they are awake an hour before the session. A common problem is that the child falls asleep in the car and then takes half the session time to wake up and be happy again. This is the situation we want to avoid.

Meal/Snack

Children of all ages can get cranky if they are hungry. Eating before you come can help everyone feel comfortable and enjoy the experience. It is not a good idea to bring treats to bribe the children. Once they see the treat that is usually all they can concentrate on and most likely will be more upset.  The meal/snack should probably be before you get dressed so there is no last minute laundering of outfits before you come.

Get Ready

Getting ready can be a major cause for frustration. If things fall apart here it may be difficult to have a great portrait session. Make sure you have plenty of time to take care of hair and make-up. Think ahead several hours, at least, to set out clothing. Building pressure from hair not going right to not being able to find a part of the outfit can lead to anger and bad feelings. Remember our goal is to come happy. Make a special effort achieve that goal - It will be well worth it!

Travel

It is common for families to misjudge the travel time. The greater the distance the less accurate their estimate is. Allow for a cushion in case their is unusual traffic.

Arrive 5 Min. Early

If you arrive 5 minutes early it will allow children to feel comfortable and get used to the new place. It also makes it possible for use to use your whole time to photograph.

Session Time

If you follow these suggestions you should have the best chance possible to arrive on time and happy. Many of our clients talk about how much fun they had at their session. We want the same for you.

We hope these suggestions are helpful to you. If it has been a while since you have had a family portrait, please contact us and we would love to talk to you about it.