Stress-free family photos with Portrait Innovations

Introducing our new family portraits, thanks to Portrait Innovations. We got so many great shots that this is just one of many that we fell in love with. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get three young kids to look at the camera at the same time? If you happen to want all of them smiling, you're in for a very intense standoff and someone is bound to leave in tears.

This is the reason we've gotten exactly one photo of all of us looking and smiling in the past 6 months since our new baby arrived. It was taken spur of the moment when hanging out with my cousin when I set up the shot and just handed her the camera, and we just got lucky. After posting it on Facebook everyone had basically the same reaction: Better buy a lottery ticket with that kind of luck.

Is it any wonder that I've been dreading getting an actual studio shoot for the first time as a family of 5? With the older two we got studio pictures starting at newborn and continued every 3 months until the first birthday, and they were kind of hit and miss. We finally stopped going to local photo studios entirely when my son turned 1 because the quality of pictures we were getting just weren’t worth the stress of “picture day”.

With a new baby in the family, I was starting to feel bad for not keeping the tradition going, but just thinking about holding myself to the same schedule this time around exhausted me. Sorry, 3rd baby, 4x a year pictures just aren’t going to happen. But, even though we’ve already missed the window for quarterly pictures, that doesn’t mean we are eschewing all professional pictures. I just needed to sit down and research to find a new studio, and hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

Call it kismet, but I was already starting to look into new options when I heard about Portrait Innovations in Kent, WA at Kent Station. I loved their new summer backdrops and the fact that they allowed for clothing changes, and I decided those two things alone were well worth the drive.  Scheduling an appointment was easy via their online scheduling tool where you can see when the studio is open {many studios are closed Monday or Tuesday} and have varying hours. Pro tip: When photographing multiple kids, you will need extra time so choose a day when there aren’t lots of appointments are scheduled that day. You can click on days you are considering and see how many slots are still available to tell you if the studio is busy or not. In general, weekends will be much busier than weekdays, but as it gets closer to the holidays you might find weekdays filling up, too.  We chose the last sitting of the day, which I felt bad about because I knew that everyone would like to get home to their families, but Steffanie and her team didn’t mind a bit. They got us right in and started getting backdrops ready while we got the baby dressed and ready {because you never, ever get a baby ready until minutes before the camera comes out}. While we were preoccupied with last-minute prep, the older kids stood fascinated by the whole process. Everyone at the studio was amazing about showing the kids around and letting them ask all sorts of questions about the backdrops and props that they could use.

When the pictures started, I immediately knew that we were in good hands. I was expecting a very quick and to the point shoot since that’s what I was used to in the past, but that’s not at all what we got at Portrait Innovations. I loved that everyone took the time to get to know the kids names, they asked our preferences on backdrops, posing, and they didn’t just snap pictures to be done. No, they waited while my son took extra time to warm up and they convinced him to smile and actually look at the camera. I was starting to get a bit worried that we were taking too much time and weren’t going to be able to fit in a change of clothing and a different backdrop, but the team kept the kids focused and didn’t cut the shoot short. While we changed our clothing, Steffanie moved to the next studio and got the backdrops and props ready for the next shots and she was ready in just minutes.

Overall, we ended up with too many great shots to choose from. Luckily, they are pros when it comes to helping you edit down your shots you want to do something with. It was mere minutes at the computer and we had the entire shoot sorted into favorites and outtakes. This picture is my favorite picture of the day, and it almost didn't happen. I'm so incredibly glad that it did.  Once that was done, the fun stuff happened and we got to choose which pictures we wanted prints, books, canvases, and cards of. I will admit it might have been a bit overwhelming if we hadn’t just gone with the portrait package to make things super easy. That way we could just follow their suggestions and end up with enough pictures to hand out to family and friends as well as a ton to hang and frame. To make things easier, they even had a LEGO table for the kids to play at so we could focus on ordering pictures. So smart, right? I really would have loved a huge canvas of the angel picture, but I already had a big order by the time I added up all my prints and the picture CD {so I could share them here with everyone} and I opted to wait. But, I love that our package we ordered came with a small 5×7 canvas that they will be shipping to me, and I also love that I can hop on over to Portraits.com and order photo gifts and keepsakes after the shoot so I could still order that canvas if I want.

In just a matter of minutes we were walking out of the studio with a packet of archival quality photos printed in-shop. The 5×7 canvas and photobook are currently en route to my house, and I cannot wait to see them in person. If they are anything like the quality of the prints we already got, I know I'm going to be in love. Seriously – why didn't I come here sooner?

Think about it: when was your last family portrait session? Want to make an appointment at a Portrait Innovations near you? Choose your location and schedule a sitting today before things get crazy before the holidays. They even have some awesome packages and special offers right now that you can take advantage of to get even more prints of your sitting.

A big thank you to Portrait Innovations for the complimentary photo sitting. As always, all opinions are 100% ours.