We had our own family pictures taken this weekend by my friend, the very talented Sarah Engle of Wunderkind Gallery. We don't have our photos back yet but I'm excited to share them once we get them!

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you may have seen my post asking for opinions on what we should wear. I found a new black maxi dress by Bon Rosy on Amazon (click HERE to view the dress) and champagne gold jewelry, and my husband already had the perfect button down shirt to pair with it. But for the life of me I couldn't decide between dark orange or golden khaki as our pop of color for our boys. I thought one of the options would be the clear winner, but the opinions were surprisingly fairly evenly split!

At the 11th hour, just when I thought I had settled on the golden khaki option, I changed my mind and went with the orange. It was Sarah's recommendation too as well as another trusted mentor.

Most years I just torture myself and try to run back and forth between my family and the camera/tripod, coaching my children (who are currently 7 and 6) to please look at the camera and smile naturally, while trying to act natural myself.

And it never fails, whenever I try to do our family photos I always pick the most humid day ever. If you're a Friends watcher, do you remember the one in the Caribbean when Monica has really big & frizzy hair from the humidity?

Yep, that's me.

So this year we decided to do what I always recommend others do - hire a professional photographer! Genius, right? 😜

It's been awhile since we've had family photos that I haven't taken myself, so to be totally in front of the camera again was....really nice! I mean, I always prefer to be behind the camera rather than in front of it, but it was so nice to just relax and enjoy the process on the other side and not try to do it all. I could totally trust Sarah to know that the shot was exposed properly, everyone in focus, eyes open, and that our family would be captured perfectly for this moment in time in our lives.

It was heavenly!

It was also a good reminder of what my clients experience, which of course I always strive for it to be fun and positive. But the struggle is real! All of the internal thoughts in my head...

"Is my necklace straight?"

"Is my bra showing?"

"Am I smiling naturally? Too squinty? Half blinking?"

"Are my kids looking at the camera or at the random car driving by?"

"Are my Spanx doing their job?"

"Are Blake's pants falling down?" (He's really skinny and even slims are big on him).

Sarah was wonderful and assured us that everyone was doing great! We had a great session and I can't wait to see our final images.

And we'll see how my Spanx did 😜

All kidding aside, these are the things I learned, or was reminded of, during our session:

1 - Enjoy the process.

Family pictures can be stressful for sure, but they don't have to be. I mean, there's always the random toddler meltdown, or in our case, active boys who would rather wrestle than hug each other (or the hug turns in to wrestling), but Sarah made it fun, and as a result we all had fun!

2 - Coordinate your outfits but don't stress about it.

Khaki or orange? The dark charcoal shirt or the lighter gray one? Whichever wardrobe issue you're wrestling with, will that really matter in 10 years?

No. The answer is no. We all had clean clothes on and did our best to express our love to one another, and that's what really matters.

3 - Try not to get upset if the kids aren't cooperating.

Oh man, this one is HARD!! Thankfully our boys did really well this year overall. It helps that they're a little older now (7 1/2 and 6) and can understand and follow directions, but I had a pep talk with myself ahead of time that I would not freak out if they were being typical boys. A parent's stress will transfer to the kids and generally escalate a situation. Sometimes you just need to let them run off a little energy, or in our boys' case, let them jump off of a rock a few times. They both said that was their favorite shot and they haven't even seen it yet!

Sarah made us all feel very comfortable in front of the camera and I can’t wait to see our pictures.

Fall is almost officially here. Have you had your family photos taken yet? I have several new professional products I’d love to show you during a no-obligation consultation. Let’s work together to create something really beautiful for your home.