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10 Tips to Capture Holiday Photos

What to Wear for Memorable Holiday Photos | 10 Tips

October 19, 2020

what to wear for holiday photos

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. 

holiday photos what to wear ideas
Con­sid­er how your out­fits may change for indoor vers­es out­door hol­i­day photoshoots.

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! 

Let your fur-babies be a part of the of hol­i­day experience!

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!


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.

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Hi, I’m Dena!

I am a nat­ur­al light, lifestyle pho­tog­ra­ph­er with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence. I will teach you exact­ly what you need to do to start tak­ing amaz­ing photos!

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