What to Wear for Memorable Holiday Photos | 10 Tips

You prob­a­bly read that title and thought, is she seri­ous? “What to wear for Hol­i­day pho­tos? It’s not even Hal­loween.”

Yes, I said it, and to be hon­est, it is time to start think­ing about what you will wear for those hol­i­day pho­tos you will make into your 2020 Hol­i­day cards!

My busiest time of the year is Sep­tem­ber, Octo­ber, and Novem­ber. Every mom I know is plan­ning the Hol­i­day card and sched­ul­ing the Hol­i­day pho­to­shoot. And I wish that I had a dol­lar for every time that I get asked, “What should we wear for our pho­tos?”

So I have com­piled a list for you… appar­ent­ly, I am good at com­pil­ing lists as of late!

1. Pick your holiday card ahead of your session. 

I always sug­gest my clients do this. It helps to steer the ses­sion and makes choos­ing out­fits and col­ors a bit easier. 

2. Decide if you want an indoor or outdoor photo session. 

If you are shoot­ing an indoor hol­i­day pho­tos ses­sion, you can make it a bit more relaxed. Match­ing paja­mas in front of the fire. Light-col­ored sweaters, jeans, and fun wooly socks while read­ing books. Try going full glam, ala Kar­dashi­an. Put on your best for­mal dress­es, and the guys in suits. If you’re shoot­ing an out­door ses­sion, have fun and play with win­ter hats, scarves and gloves. Make sure your out­fits stand out amongst the surroundings. 

3. Determine if you want to use this photo for more than just your Christmas card. 

Not many peo­ple are going to want to see their fam­i­ly in their Christ­mas jam­mies hang­ing up on Grand­ma’s wall. So think through what you will be doing with your fin­ished hol­i­day pho­tos before choos­ing your out­fits. Will you order prints to frame and hang for years to come? Or are you just send­ing the pho­tos out for sea­son greet­ings and noth­ing else?

4. Stick with a neutral, earthy color palette. 

You can’t go wrong with neu­trals. They are time­less, look great with any card you choose, and work well for both indoor and out­door hol­i­day photos.

5. Or have fun with plaids. 

Noth­ing says Christ­mas like a fun plaid. Just remem­ber to keep the bot­toms sim­ple and to use the same col­or palette. 

6. Play with textures and different fabrics. 

Christ­mas evokes mem­o­ries of warmth and cozi­ness. Choose fab­rics and tex­tures that do the same: com­fy sweaters, fuzzy slip­pers, and mittens! 

7. Ensure that everyone is on the same page and that anyone who will be in the photo agrees. 

There’s noth­ing worse than think­ing you have it all planned and ready to go and your moth­er-in-law shows up in an out­fit that is entire­ly dif­fer­ent than every­one else. Dis­cuss the hol­i­day pho­tos wardrobe and loca­tion sev­er­al days pri­or to the shoot. This ensures every­one is on the same page and can allow enough time for any­one to voice any con­cerns or questions.

8. If your furry friend is joining you for the photoshoot, make sure he’s dressed up as well! 

Grab a pet sweater in the same hues that you are all wear­ing or a bowtie to match. You don’t want Fido to feel left out! 

9. Don’t wear crazy patterns, busy shirts, or uncoordinated outfits. 

Again, if you want to be able to hang your pho­to on the wall and look back on the mem­o­ry for years to come… a char­ac­ter or graph­ic t‑shirt may not be a time­less choice. 

10. And lastly, if all else fails, get creative. 

One of my favorite Christ­mas card pho­tos was my boy’s sandy feet inter­twined on a beach. Anoth­er year I had all of our foot­prints in the sand. Some­times get­ting it all togeth­er is just too stress­ful, and that’s okay! Give your­self a break and real­ize that even using a pho­to from the spring or sum­mer is okay. At the end of the day, you cap­ture a pre­cious moment and share it with your loved ones.

Remem­ber, the key is low stress. It does­n’t mat­ter how put togeth­er your out­fit is. If every­one is stressed out, your pho­tos will nev­er turn out like you like them. Your goal should be to have fun, make the images look like you, show your per­son­al­i­ty, and cre­ate those fam­i­ly mem­o­ries! Also, don’t for­get to head over to my Face­book Group to share your favorite hol­i­day photos!

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Learn how to use man­u­al mode and take con­trol of your cam­era so that you can cre­ate the amaz­ing images that you’ve always imag­ined with the the Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials class.