What On Earth Do I Wear!?
So… you’ve booked your session, found your location, and now you’re daydreaming about how your photos will turn out. But what do you wear!? What should your fiancé wear? What if you have kids, what do they wear? Or your spouse or mom or cousin or even your dog? DO NOT FEAR. I am here to help you! I have few helpful tips written below, and at the very end I’ll offer you a few examples that can help get your wheels spinning!
First and most importantly, pick something that YOU love. If you feel great in what you are wearing, you can hardly ever go wrong.
If there are more people in your pictures than just you, you’ll want to consider coordinating everyone’s outfits with each other. Coordinating is NOT the same as matching! Try to think of one to three base colors* (if you do go for three, keep the third one a very neutral color, like off-white) that go well together, and draw your variety from patterns and textures. If you’re having your engagement photos done, you may consider wearing your wedding colors! If you’re having family photos done, you might like your photos to end up in a specific room, so think about the color scheme for that room and choose outfits that will compliment the area. Lightly accessorize, if at all, with items such as earrings and a bracelet, or a necklace and some extra rings. If you put too many accessories in one area, you will likely draw people’s eye toward that area, and it will be hard to enjoy the whole picture!
What about style? Do you go for casual, dressy, or fully formal? Again, it’s important to think about the purpose for your photos and the overall feel you want them to have! If this is for your bridals session, the two of you will be wearing your formal clothes, but shoes may not matter a whole lot for the bride (if her dress is floor length), so wear something that will be comfortable for a lot of walking and standing! The groom should definitely wear his dress shoes! If these are your family photos, you might want to choose a pretty casual sprawl so that your children won’t feel too stuffy and uncomfortable. An added bonus here is that the kids will probably cooperate for longer! On the other hand, if these are photos for you Christmas card, it might be fun to pick out some festive dresses for your girls and something sharp for your boys and you can double-purpose everything for church or for parties.
If you’re still feeling a little lost, consider the location you’ve picked for your session. What will the general palette be like? Is it in a greenhouse with lots of flowers and loud colors? You may want to cool in on the patterns! Is it fall time with lots of oranges and reds? It might be a good idea to contrast those colors and go with some darks and lights and subtle patterns! Are you headed up to the Utah State Capitol? You’ve got a lot more freedom here with the general color scheme being stone gray.
Karen and Keith chose a subtle palette that coordinated well with both the inside and the outside of the Utah State Capitol building. The dress shirt and cute white dress gave their session a classy feel.
For my family’s pictures, I chose my mom’s dress first and coordinated everyone else’s outfits around her fun pattern. Almost everyone is wearing a solid color, with the variety coming from buttons vs no buttons and different knit textures. Even though he’s standing next to my mom, my dad is in a pattern, but because of it’s subtlety and the green jacket, it still works with the overall scheme very nicely.
Eliza and Josh chose to have their engagement pictures done in the beautiful fall leaves! Josh chose a dark green sweater that perfectly contrasted the foliage, and Eliza wore an off-white dress that contrasted Josh. Notice Josh’s subtle pattern with his button-up shirt underneath his sweater!
I hope this has helped you feel confident to choose what to wear for your upcoming session! If you’re still not totally sure what you’d like to do, or even just want someone to bounce your ideas off of, please feel free to send me an email! I’d love to chat with you!