“After searching through Instagram for Vermont photographers, we immediately resonated with Allison’s cool, casual, relaxed vibes. Getting family photos with a one year old has the potential to be a disaster, so taking the pressure off with a laid back shoot was our goal, and that’s exactly how it went. Allison has a warmth and talent for connecting with people right away, our son adored her! In addition to just being very talented and having a great eye, Allison worked behind the scenes to secure locations and ensure we got the best possible lighting. I also want to give praise to and recommend the styling service with Vanessa. Coordinating colors and outfits is not as easy as it looks and we were manically texting Vanessa the week before with photos and options. She steered us in the right direction and gave us some anchoring principles that helped us nail the look and feel we were going for. It was just an all around great experience capturing a truly authentic day in the life of our little family.”

There are a few things that you can almost guarantee will happen in the days leading up to your family photos. 

Inevitably, someone will be unable to find their left shoe. Not both shoes— just the left one. Another someone (I’m looking at you, dads) will spill coffee, yogurt, or something equally suspicious down the exact shirt that needed to remain spotless. And someone else—usually the smallest person in the room— will decide that today is the day they absolutely will not be wearing pants, thanks very much. 

And then there’s you. A mom with enough on her plate as it is, standing in front of a closet and wondering how it’s possible to own so many clothes and still feel like you have nothing to wear. 

(Sound oddly specific? Maybe because it’s a scenario I’ve lived myself…)

This, among other reasons, is why I partner with Vanessa to offer 1:1 styling for family photos as an optional add-on.

In my experience, the meltdown about what to wear for family photos has very little to do with actually picking outfits and almost everything to do with adding yet another item on the mental to do list you’re already hefting around. 

And if I can help take a big task like figuring out how to dress for family photos off your plate— while you’re juggling a diaper bag, a hairbrush, and a toddler who is currently dangling from one arm like a sack of potatoes— then I’m happy to do it. 

Ten times over. 

Reason #1: What you wear for family photos becomes part of the photograph

At first glance, this reads as a declaration from Captain Obvious. But hear me out.

Clothing has a funny way of sneaking into the story of a photo.

A chunky wool sweater bunches at the elbows when a kid climbs into your lap. An army-green shacket ends up slung over the back of a coffee shop chair. A linen dress catches the Vermont autumn breeze and suddenly looks like it was designed specifically for golden hour. Corduroy-clad knees pick up a faint dusting of grass stains because someone plopped down in the field to catch grasshoppers approximately forty-seven seconds after arriving.

These are small things. 

But they’re the small things that end up living inside the photo for the rest of time.

The clothes aren’t separate from the moment— they’re part of it. Which is exactly why what you wear for family photos matters more than you might think. 

Reason #2: Vermont is already doing a lot of the styling

Vermont’s landscape isn’t going to be shy about expressing an opinion. 

In early June, you’ll find sprawling fields that are that almost-neon shade of green that makes everything look freshly rinsed. By October, the hills look like someone spilled a box of Crayola crayons across the mountains— burnt oranges and deep umber and shocking yellows scattered throughout a horizon line. 

Even winter has a palette: snow, pine trees, pale blue sky. 

When clothing complements Vermont in her Sunday best, so to speak, something really magical happens. 

Instead of looking like a family who booked a session, chose a location, and called it a day, you look like a unit of humans who belong exactly where you are. 

A chunky cream sweater in tall grass. A faded denim jacket near the water. A soft dress moving in the wind. In other words: a family photos color scheme that looks like it grew right out of the landscape. 

(Which, to be fair, if you’re raising kids here… it pretty much did.)

Reason #3: Pinterest is wildly optimistic about children 

At some point most moms type “family photo outfits” into Pinterest. Been there, done that, don’t plan on doing it ever again.

Hitting up someone else’s mood board seems helpful until you realize every example of what to wear for family photos involves three small children standing perfectly still (read: “behaving,” allegedly) in coordinated linen outfits in a field that appears to be somewhere in the Italian countryside.

Meanwhile, your actual child is in the next room wearing rain boots (with real-life mud on them, and somehow inside them, too), a dinosaur shirt, and the Batman cape they’ve been emotionally attached to since last Tuesday.

This is where the part where we myth-bust everything you’ve come to believe about personal styling.

Personal styling for family photos is not for creating an unattainable mood board or asking you to rack up credit card debt three days before the session. It’s about looking at the clothes you already own and finding the pieces that work together— and that still allow kids to exist how kids actually exist. 

Kids do not stand in fields looking like Gucci models in training.

They run. They climb. They sit squarely in puddles like it’s the most sensible thing in the world. They wipe sticky hands on the nearest adult. They pick up rocks and tuck them into their pockets without a word, because surely you won’t notice their bulging pants in two minutes’ time. 

The outfits that work best for family photos are the ones that can survive all of that living— and are ready to live a little more. 

Reason #4: The best outfits usually have a little history behind them

Some of my favorite outfits I’ve photographed clearly did not come straight from a store rack that week. And if they did, it was probably a thrift store. 

They’ve been… around. 

A cardigan with slightly softened elbows that someone found thrifting in Burlington years ago. A pair of OshKosh overalls that have made their way through three cousins and an older brother before landing on the current owner. A flannel that a dad has worn in a workshop so often that the sleeves now naturally roll to exactly the right spot. 

Clothing that has already lived a little life behaves differently, I swear. 

It sits more comfortably on a person’s body. It moves the way real clothes move. It certainly doesn’t look like it was panic-purchased off Amazon three nights ago, a rogue tag still hanging from an errant sleeve. 

And, as a result, you move more comfortably (read: like an actual human instead of a sorry excuse for a robot) through your family photo session. 

When the clothes already belong to your life, the photos end up feeling like your life, too. Isn’t that something?

Reason #5: Comfortable kids make what to wear for family photos much easier

There are exactly two types of clothes a child can wear to family photos. 

The first lasts for exactly three minutes before a tantrum hits. 

The second type allows them to cartwheel through the house, sit on your shoulders, and forget that they’re being photographed at all. 

We are always (I repeat, always) aiming for the second kind of outfit. Because the moment that a kid notices their sweater is itchy, their collar is “choking” them, or their shoes are severely compromising their ability to run at full speed, the entire session becomes a negotiation.

And believe me… they will notice, mark their words. 

Comfortable clothes short-circuit the sleeve tugs and “I hate this shirt” whispers and slow unraveling of patience that begins somewhere around minute twelve. 

When kids feel like themselves in what they’re wearing— soft sweaters that feel like the ones they wear to playgroup, bibs that allow for general toddler physics, shoes that don’t prevent a full sprint on a moment’s notice— they stop thinking about the clothes.

And, take it from a Vermont family photographer who’s been in the game for a minute: that’s exactly when the best photos tend to happen. 

Reason #6: Parents are already running the whole operation as it is

And finally— the realest reason that 1:1 styling for family photos exists. 

By the time family photo day rolls around, you’ve already pulled off roughly one thousand tiny logistical miracles, in addition to keeping a bunch of tiny humans alive. 

You’ll have located the missing (left) shoe. You’ll have struck a deal with the kid who refused to wear pants, and yes, it will involve snack bribes, as most negotiations do. You’ve packed enough snacks to feed a small army, wipes, backup snacks to feed a slightly larger army, and the stuffed animal whose absence will absolutely be noticed.

You’ll also probably have braided someone’s hair, wiped popsicle juice off a chin, and reminded everyone— at least twice— that the car leaves in five minutes. 

Adding ‘coordinate family photo outfits’ to that docket can feel… ambitious.

So offering styling is really just my way of saying, “Let me take this one.”

So… what should you actually wear for family photos?

If you’ve read this far hoping I’d drop a strict formula for family photo outfits, I have both good and bad news.

There isn’t one. (Although I do have a handy-dandy guide to what to wear for family photos, here.)

But after photographing families across Vermont for years, I’ve noticed a few patterns that almost always work:

• Start with one outfit you love (usually mom’s, if we’re being honest) and build the rest around it
• Keep the color palette simple. Think: soft neutrals, denim, earthy tones, and textures that play nicely with the landscape.
• Choose clothes that allow movement (running, spinning, climbing, grass-sitting… the usual)
• Avoid logos and loud graphics that steal attention from faces. 
• Lean into real-life pieces.

In other words, the best way to dress for family photos is usually the same way you dress for a really good Vermont afternoon.

Comfortably, simply, and in clothes that come naturally to you.

When families opt into the 1:1 styling service, you’ll actually work with a professional stylist—Vanessa—who helps you pull together your family photo outfits from the clothes you already own (with a few thoughtful additions if needed).

(In fact, the photos you see of my own family were styled by Vanessa, too—so yes, I happily take my own advice.)

She’ll help build a color palette that works with the Vermont landscape, make sure everyone’s outfits feel cohesive, and most importantly, make sure the clothes still allow kids to move through the world like kids.