I know, I know, we’re still two weeks away from Halloween! How can we possibly be thinking about the winter holidays yet? I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I love planning out all the details of this season. We have a really busy November and December with lots of family birthdays, a big work trip for my husband, and a solo trip to NYC for me, so I want to do our holiday card photo shoot early this year to have enough time to get our cards out. Thanksgiving falls really late in November this year (28th), which is also throwing a wrench in my usual wait-until-after-Thanksgiving-to-worry-about-Christmas mind frame.

About a month ago, I was browsing Pinterest for holiday card ideas and saw a few that featured pictures of families at Christmas tree farms. I’ve always wanted to cut down a real tree, so I decided to ask my friend Michelle if she would take photos of us at a local farm to use for our cards. The one we’d visit doesn’t officially open until after Thanksgiving, but I’m going to call to see if they can let us still take pictures there early, since we have almost no free time to do it between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

With the backdrop in mind (lots of green trees), I created this board as inspiration for our outfits!

Holiday Photos 2013

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We already own most of the items here, or ones that are similar, so there’s not much to buy, which is good for the budget. I wanted Liam’s outfit to stand out the most since he’s the cutest member of our family (no, really), so I chose the red pants for him, which are actually girls’ skinny jeans from Old Navy. His shoes are my favorite ever and are so inexpensive, from H&M. I always get a lot of compliments when I wear my tall brown boots, so I decided to choose items for myself that are flattering and comfortable. My husband doesn’t usually like it when I “dress” him, but since he has items like these already and wears them to work all the time, I don’t think it will be a tough pill to swallow.

When planning outfits for family photo shoots, I always start with one item for one person and work from there. This time, I started with Liam’s red skinny jeans. When we took family pictures in March, I started with my coral dress from Asos. I try not to make all the looks match, but go together, with a consistent color palette (this one is red, green, black, brown, white, and gray) and contrasting patterns (Liam’s plaid shirt doesn’t clash with Mr. TTT’s argyle sweater). I also always make sure everyone is wearing something comfortable that they can move in because when people are at ease, they are the most photogenic.

What do you think of my picks? Do you plan outfits for pictures as far in advance as I do?