Multi Family Portrait Session Tips

So your WHOLE family is going on vacation and of course it’s the ultimate perfect moment to have portraits taken.

But how does it work?!

Let me tell you that after 15 years as a pro photographer, multi-family sessions are still my favorite! Mostly because it’s so fun to see big families enjoying the sun and surf and also make time for a quick session.

Here are some tips to help it all go smoothly on the day of our session!

TIP 1

Dress in similar colors but not too matchy-matchy. Each smaller family can coordinate further but it’s good to have a color scheme that everyone can wear so that it looks cohesive and coordinated while still giving each family the opportunity to shine.

TIP 2

We’ll get the big group first and from there break up into smaller families. It’s also fantastic if one person can help with coordinating which family is next as well as any variations you’d like. I don’t know your family the way you do so if there’s an aunt you want a photo with or a variation of grandparents with grandchildren, etc, please let me know!

I do not mind taking more photos and getting all of your loved ones photographed in all of the variations possible, I’m here to serve you and these are YOUR photos, so let’s do it all!

TIP 3

Choose one location first and then after we get all the main photos out of the way we can try another. So for example, this family was at a Villa and so we chose this beautiful lush green wall for all of the portraits.

We did have the option of heading down to the beach but they opted not to. Some families like to have a combo and some families are fine with one location.

So just keep in mind if you’d like to change the background, we’ll probably end up doing the second location after we get everyone at the first location.

Uff, I hope that wasn’t confusing!

There you have it! Those are my main tips! For large families, we often won’t get too many candid photos given that we gotta work quickly before we start losing people, 😅.