Extended Family Photography Session: Everything You Need to Know

Planning a family photo session is pretty simple when it’s Mom, Dad, and the kids. Add Grandma and Grandpa. Then a sister and her husband. Then their three kids. Oh—and maybe one more cousin who is visiting from out of town. Suddenly, your “family photo session” has turned into a small family reunion. And that’s exactly when an extended family photography session makes sense.

What Is an Extended Family?

An extended family session is a photo session that includes more than one immediate family. Instead of photographing just parents and their children, we bring together several generations or branches of the family. For example, your group might include grandparents and their children, adult siblings and their families, cousins, aunts and uncles, grandchildren, multiple families coming together for a special occasion, or simply everyone who doesn’t usually get to be in the same place at the same time.
There really isn’t a strict number of people that makes a family “extended.” For me, the simplest way to think about it is: If you need more than one immediate family represented in the photos, you are probably looking at an extended family session.
And honestly, these are some of my favorite sessions to photograph because there are so many relationships and stories happening within one group.

How Many People Can Be in an Extended Family Session?

There is no magic number. I’ve photographed families of 8, 10, 12, 15, and more. The important thing is not only the number of people, but how many different combinations of people you want photographed.
And that is where extended family sessions become different from a regular family session. If there are 10 people in your group, you probably don’t want just one photo of all 10 people. You want the grandparents with the grandchildren. You want the siblings together. You want each individual family. You want the cousins. You want Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids. You want the kids together. And maybe you also want that beautiful candid photo of everyone laughing together.
That’s a lot of photographs—and a lot of combinations.

Why Do Extended Family Sessions Take Longer?

This is one of the biggest reasons I recommend giving an extended family session enough time. With a regular family session, we can usually move pretty quickly. With a larger family, we’re constantly changing combinations.
For example, during one session we might photograph:
The whole family — Everyone together—the big family portrait.
Each individual family — Mom, Dad and their children.
Grandparents with their children — A beautiful opportunity to capture the relationship between generations.
Grandparents with the grandchildren — One of my favorite combinations.
Adult siblings — The brothers and sisters together, without their kids.
Cousins — All the kids together.
Siblings and their children — Another combination that often becomes a favorite.
Smaller groups — Two sisters, three brothers, Grandma with one grandchild, Grandpa with another—and all those little relationships that make your family unique.
And then, of course, we leave room for the unexpected moments. Because sometimes the best photograph isn’t the perfectly posed one. It’s Grandma laughing with a grandchild. A dad fixing his daughter’s hair. Two siblings talking while everyone else is getting organized. The kids running around together. Those little moments are part of your family story too.

Why I Recommend a 90-Minute Extended Family Session

For extended families, I usually recommend approximately 90 minutes. It gives us enough time to photograph the large group, break into smaller groups, and still allow the session to feel relaxed.
We don’t have to rush through every combination. We can take a few minutes to organize everyone, especially when there are young children involved. And most importantly, we don’t have to make difficult choices about which combinations we have time for.
My extended family package also includes all of the good images from the session. That’s intentional. When you have a large family, I don’t want you standing there thinking: “We have five minutes left. Which family combination should we skip?” There are too many relationships to choose from. If we photograph it, and it’s a good image, I want you to have it.

What Does an Extended Family Session Look Like With Me?

I don’t simply put everyone together and take the same photograph for 90 minutes.  We move through the session in a natural order.
We usually start with the full family portrait while everyone is together. Then we gradually break the group down. We’ll photograph each individual family, grandparents with grandchildren, siblings together, cousins, different generations, and smaller combinations. We’ll also leave time for more relaxed, candid photographs.
This approach allows us to create a gallery that feels much more complete than simply having a collection of large group portraits. When you look through your gallery later, you should be able to see not only who was there, but the relationships between everyone.

What Should We Wear for an Extended Family Session?

This is probably one of the biggest questions I get. And my best advice is: Coordinate—don’t match.
You don’t need everyone wearing the same color or the same outfit. In fact, I usually prefer when everyone looks like themselves. Instead, choose a color palette that works together.
For example: cream + beige + soft blue, neutrals + denim, earthy greens + tan + brown, soft whites + muted colors, or warm neutrals + subtle patterns.
Try to avoid everyone wearing completely different bright colors at the same time. And if one person is wearing a strong pattern, keep the rest of the outfits a little simpler.
The goal is for the family to look connected without looking like you all bought the same outfit.
For large families, I also recommend thinking about the group as a whole. Lay all the outfits out together before the session. You don’t have to make them identical. You just want them to look like they belong in the same photograph.

How Do We Choose the Best Time?

For outdoor family photography, I usually prefer late afternoon and golden hour. The light is softer and more flattering, and the overall atmosphere is beautiful.
But with extended families, there is another important consideration: the children.
If you have several young children, a beautiful golden-hour session doesn’t help much if everyone is exhausted and the toddlers have completely run out of patience.
So I always consider the ages of the children when choosing the time. The best time is the one that gives us beautiful light and gives the family the best chance of having happy, comfortable kids.

How Do We Choose the Location?

A good location for an extended family session needs to do more than simply look pretty. We need enough space for a large group. We need areas where we can move around and create smaller combinations. We want a location that isn’t too difficult for grandparents or young children to walk around. And ideally, we want some variety in the background so that the gallery doesn’t look like every photograph was taken in exactly the same spot.
I love outdoor locations because they give us room to move, natural interaction, and beautiful light. Depending on your family, we might choose a park, open field, garden, beach, vineyard, or another location that feels meaningful to you.

What if we have a very young children?

Don’t worry too much about this. Young children are not going to behave like professional models—and I don’t expect them to.
We can work around their energy. We’ll start with the combinations that are most important while everyone is fresh. Then we’ll let the kids move around a little.
Some of the most beautiful images happen when children aren’t standing perfectly still. My job is to guide the family, keep things moving, and look for those little moments instead of expecting everyone to behave perfectly for 90 minutes.

The Most Important Thing: Don’t Try to Get the Perfect Photo

With extended families, I think it’s especially important to let go of the idea that every photograph has to be perfectly posed.
Your family is not a Pinterest board.
Someone will blink. Someone will laugh. A toddler will probably run away at least once. Someone will fix their hair. And someone will say, “Wait, where is Uncle Mike?” 
That’s okay.
Those moments are part of the experience. My goal is to give you a beautiful collection of photographs that shows your family as it is—not just one perfect picture where everyone happens to be looking at the camera.

Why Extended Family Photos Are Worth It

The older we get, the more we realize that having everyone together is actually pretty special. Grandparents won’t always be here. Children grow up. Cousins move away. Adult siblings start their own families. And getting everyone together becomes harder and harder.
An extended family photo session gives you a chance to document all those relationships while everyone is together. Not just one photograph. A whole collection.
The big family. The individual families. The grandparents. The grandchildren. The siblings. The cousins. The hugs. The laughter. The little moments in between.
That’s what makes an extended family session so meaningful.

Extended Family Photography in the Bay Area

If your family is getting together in the Bay Area, Napa, Benicia, Vallejo, or the surrounding areas, an extended family photography session can be a wonderful way to document that time together.
I recommend planning your session in advance so we can choose a location that works well for everyone, find the best time for the light and the children, and make sure there is enough time for all the combinations your family wants.

Ready to Plan Your Extended Family Session?

If your family is getting together and you’re thinking, “We should really take some family photos while everyone is here,” don’t wait until everyone is standing in the driveway wondering what to do next.
Planning the session in advance makes everything much easier. Choose your date, decide who will be included, think about the location and outfits, and give yourself enough time for all the combinations you want.
For extended families, I recommend a 90-minute session so we can photograph the entire group as well as all the smaller family combinations without feeling rushed.
And because my extended family package includes all the good photographs from the session, you don’t have to choose which memories to leave behind.
You get to keep them all.
Because when the whole family finally gets together, you shouldn’t have to choose which moments are worth remembering.