What to Wear for Family Photos

The clothes question comes up in nearly every planning call we have with a family, and it carries more weight than it should. People worry about getting it wrong, or they don’t think about it until the morning of the sitting and end up regretting whatever they grabbed off the chair. The good news is that there are no fixed rules. The better news is that what tends to work is mostly about restraint, and is easier than people fear.

This is meant as a practical guide rather than a prescription, drawn from three generations of photographing families at Yann Studios and a fair amount of trial and error.

Coordinate rather than match

The single most common mistake is matching. A family in identical white shirts and jeans looks like a stock photograph rather than a family. The eye gets nothing to settle on, and the result is flat regardless of the lighting or the setting.

What works instead is a family clearly dressed within the same palette but not identical. Think of a colour family rather than a uniform. A mother in cream, the father in a soft brown jumper, one child in mustard, another in a dusty blue, and everyone reads as belonging together without anyone looking like a clone.

A useful test before the day: imagine the family standing together. If you can describe the outfit in one sentence (“everyone’s in white and jeans”), it’s too matched. If you can describe it as a palette (“warm neutrals with a touch of mustard”), you’re on the right side of it.

Colours that photograph well

Soft, slightly muted colours nearly always work. Earth tones, in particular: cream, oatmeal, soft brown, sage, dusty blue, mustard, terracotta. These photograph well in any season and read as timeless rather than tied to a particular year.

For autumn and winter sittings, deeper tones come into their own. Navy, forest green, burgundy, charcoal, a rich camel. They hold up well in indoor light and do not compete with the season’s mood.

Spring and summer sittings, especially outdoors, suit pastels and lighter tones. Soft pinks, butter yellow, pale blue, lavender, ivory.

What to keep away from: anything neon or fluorescent, which can throw colour casts onto faces. Pure brilliant white next to a light backdrop, which can wash everyone out. Pure jet black against a dark setting, which flattens into a single dark mass. And small busy repetitive patterns like fine herringbone or close stripes, which can produce a strange shimmer in the photograph that cannot be fixed afterwards.

Logos and slogans are worth avoiding entirely, even small ones on jumpers and t-shirts. They date the photograph the moment a brand changes its logo, and they draw the eye away from faces.

The children

Children are the part of the sitting where comfort matters more than anything else. A child fidgeting with a stiff collar or scratching at an itchy fabric is a child who looks uncomfortable in every frame. Whatever they wear, make sure it does not pinch, scratch, or restrict movement.

Within that, dress them in something they actually like wearing. The favourite jumper or the cardigan they are proud of gives you a child who looks like themselves. A formal outfit they wore once at a wedding and hated tends to show on the face.

Shoes get more attention than you might expect. Children’s feet are often at the bottom of the frame in a family portrait, and a scuffed pair of school trainers next to careful outfits is a small thing that stays with people afterwards. Worth a moment to consider.

For outdoor sittings

Outdoor sittings around Galway need a slightly different brief. Practical footwear matters, especially in the woodland at Coole Park or on the rougher ground along the Connemara coast. Even smart boots will do better than dress shoes.

Layering helps with Irish weather. A jumper or jacket that comes on and off allows for changes in cloud cover and temperature without disrupting the look. Coordinate the layers in the same palette, since they will appear in some frames and not others.

Sunglasses on the head and not on the face. Hair tied back if the wind is up. And nothing too floaty if it is a windy day, since dresses that look beautiful in still air can become a problem in a sea breeze.

Bringing changes

For most family sittings, two or three outfit changes is worth bringing, particularly if you want the gallery to have some variety. Coordinate across the changes too. If the first set is in warm neutrals, the second set should still sit in that palette rather than swing to bright primaries.

For shorter sittings or sittings with very young children, one well-considered outfit each is often more sensible than burning the limited goodwill on changing rooms.

The night before

Lay every outfit out on a bed together, look at it as a single scene, and spot the clash that does not work. The mother’s cream blouse next to the child’s ivory dress, which looked fine separately, may turn out to be two too-similar near-whites that get muddled in the photograph. Easier to swap one out the night before than on the morning of the sitting.

Iron everything that needs ironing. Check the children’s outfits for stains. And lay out the shoes too, since those are what tend to get forgotten in the rush of the morning.

When you are stuck

If any of this leaves you more confused than you started, just call us. We do these planning conversations all the time and we are glad to talk through specifics: the family’s colouring, the location, the season, what you have in the wardrobe already, and what is worth picking up if anything. A ten-minute conversation usually settles it.

You can read more about the family photography sittings we run at Yann Studios on our family photography page.

To book a family portrait sitting, call us on 087 099 3990 or get in touch through our contact page.