I love how Kelly of Kelly V Photography explains why we do what we do!  Here’s what she has to say:

One of the things we always talk about is how to adapt these Wardrobe Wednesday posts to fit your own portrait session. Particularly with the family outfit suggestions, we try to illustrate that when done correctly, your outfits should work together as a group, but also well in pairs and individually.

It’s one thing to say “You can put this together, subtract this, or add this,” but I’m a visual girl, so I thought I’d show you!

I recently had a portrait session where my client e-mailed me photos she took of her own clothes to get my feedback as part of her pre-session consultation. Most of these items are basic wardrobe staples that you can find at your favorite clothing retailer, if not in your closet already. For these reasons I’m not going to concentrate on where to shop as much as illustrate how well the pairings work and why.

Michele sent me the image of her daughter’s dress on the right, which she said was purchased at Forever 21, and the following four photos:

She had checked out previous Wardrobe Wednesday posts and knew to pull colors from the dress for the rest of the family, so she was off to a great start! I suggested the outfit on the left for her son because the light blue vest in the outfit on the right was too close a shade to Dad’s button down.

The only problem it posed was that three people would be in khakis, which would be a little too similar, so I suggested she wear a white skirt. She worried it would get it dirty while sitting on the ground — definitely a valid point — and asked if her husband could wear jean shorts. That would be a little too casual in my opinion, so we settled on a denim skirt for her, and that was the missing piece! They looked incredible!

Okay, so because they did such a great job, lets pull them into smaller groupings and you can see how all of the outfits still work even in pairs or individually.

And, even better? Look at how great the different images look together, too! Which makes for an awesome wall display. And isn’t that the whole point of a portrait session? So you can warm up your home with incredible images and even better memories!