How should you dress for an Extended Family Shoot?  Here’s my last shoot of 2019, you can learn from their ways. I generally tell families several things which this family did wonderfully:

1. Don’t match.  For example, don’t put everyone in a white shirt.
2. Be low contrast (I only say this for extended families). There are so many people in extended shoots, you don’t want to mix lots of lights with darks (i.e. black and white).  It can be distracting with so many people.
3. Have a general color scheme and add lots of neutrals.  Denim, gray, camel (not sure what the correct name of that one is…you get the idea), olive, navy.  Don’t stick with the same neutral- it’ll be too matchy-matchy.
4. Make sure the people in your immediate family have a variety of dominant colors (the main color of someone’s outfit).  It’s hard to place families if several people that I would normally put together are all wearing the same color of shirt.

And last but not least, I tell people not to stress too much about who’s wearing what. Sessions like this are hard on the front end with lots of schedules to coordinate and people to outfit. There will probably be some members of the family that aren’t on board as much as others, but it always works out in the end.