The old adage is true: love me love my family (and there are a lot of us to love!!!). In my immediate family are my two parents and six brothers and sisters (two boys, five girls total), then you add in all the spouses and grandkids… we’re a big bunch! We love spending time together, but with some many different schedules to take into consideration, it is hard to get everyone in the same place at the same time. So we have started the tradition of renting a beach house for the weekend and all of us make sure to clear our schedules and commit to spending that time together relaxing.
I knew as soon as we started planning for the trip that I wanted to do family pictures of everyone because I was NOT happy with the last photo we got together (you can check out my rant {HERE} ), so I started planning early.

Putting this photo shoot together was a little tougher than I initially thought it would be, but I had an awesome group of people helping me, including Alicia and Mandy from the Best Face Forward glam team, and then my friend Amresh of Digital Reflections Photography came out to help take pictures that I couldn’t (like the ones with me in them 😉 )
I knew I wanted to take a LOT of pictures, so for me the challenge was working around the lighting, coordinating schedules between hair and makeup, photographing people who were dressed already, and (of course) dealing with people who are tired of taking pictures.

All the girls together for their closeup!

My Brother Is Such a Lady Killer!

Everyone was SO awesome during the picture taking process!
I’ll admit, I was a nervous wreck because I was worried about rain during the shoot and then I was stressed because I wanted to do a good job. But it turns out I had nothing to worry about because everyone did AMAZING!

These two started it all <3Three Generations of Love

It was really good for me to remember what it’s like being on the other side of the camera. It’s stressful getting family pictures done.
I mean, REALLY stressful.
But in the end, I am SO incredibly thankful that we were able to do them because we were able to create photographs that can be treasured for a long time!

And let me just assure you, it wasn’t all gorgeous smiles and posey posey. These pictures kind of give you the behind the scenes look at all of us trying to get our act together and goofing off 🙂 And of course, you have to get the crazy family picture!

There were so many groupings that I wanted to capture while we were taking pictures, and I know that by the end of the day everyone was tired of hearing me say “just one more picture”! I really did mean it, but then I would take the picture and be reminded of another picture I just had to take!

The last picture I really wanted to be sure to capture was one of all my parents children (aka = the kids). My dad was gracious enough to take those pictures, and someone (can’t remember who) got the bright idea to line us all up according to age… you will see from the following pictures exactly how thrilled I am with that idea!

But then we got it together and got a regular picture.
And of course we had to do a fun one, and what could be more fun than jumping on the sand?!

I love my family and am SUPER happy that we were able to spend time together and do this photo shoot!
To my dear family member, thank you for being so patient with me as we did this project and for not throttling me every time I kept saying “just one more”. I love you all and am so lucky to have you be a part of my life.