Scheduling a family session may sound stressful for some families. It takes making time on a busy calendar, picking outifts for everyone that coordinate, getting everyone in the car to get to the session and crossing your fingers that the kids behave and smile for the camera. I don’t have my own kids, but I can imagine how stressful that might be for some parents out there!
It does take some effort and it is an investment. I get it. But I believe there are atleast 4 big benefits of scheduling a family session each year.
1) Document Growth
I think an obvious reason to schedule a family session once a year is to document growth! Your babies grow quickly, they change a little more every single year. It’s fun to look back on your family photos from year to year to see the changes in each of you!
2) Parents are always behind the camera
Of course you’re always capturing memories & your child’s growth each year with your iphone, but that’s just it, not only are those iphone quality photos, but you are hardly ever in the photo WITH your child! Selfies are possible but not always the best way to capture you and your babies. With a family photo session atleast once a year, you get to be in all the photos with your kids and your spouse!
3) Create Memories to Look Back On
Not only is a family session great for having a Christmas card to send out, for making prints to hang on your walls, putting the photos in an album or to update your facebook profile pic. Family photos are to look back on the memories created. These photos aren’t just for you as parents to look back on, but these photos are one day going to mean a lot to your kids when they’re grown, and even grandkids! How fun is it to look back on your grandparents old photos, even your own parents?! Photos are how we remember and look back on life, whether we were there, or even remember being there!
4) Life Happens
Yes, life happens. As much as we don’t want to think about what the worst could be, we just never know when a family member might pass away or when the entire dynamic of a family could change. For myself, I thankfully have not lost a parent or a sibling in my own family, but the last time we took family photos with all of us in the pictures together was over 12 years ago. Today, a lot has changed for my family as a whole in just the past few years. I wish we would have had more recent updated photos together to look back on. Sometimes looking back on family photos is how we get through things, how we remember what our family was/is to us, whether it be a death or really any kind of family dynamic change.
Honestly, even if you don’t have kids, maybe just a dog, or maybe it’s just you and your spouse! I still believe in yearly updated photos. Joey and I have made it a point to get updated photos together each year and it’s just the two of us right now. I love looking back on our photos together, we really do change each year!
