Why Inviting Grandparents (and Everyone You Love) to Your Family Session Is Always the Right Call
If you’ve ever wondered who to invite to your family session (or if you can invite anyone at all) here’s the lowdown on who I love to meet at sessions! Because sometimes “family” isn’t just the parents and kids; it’s the cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles and chosen family that make up all of your favorite memories.
Let me paint you a picture. It’s golden hour somewhere just outside of Bonney Lake, the light is doing that perfect Pacific Northwest thing where everything glows warm and soft, and grandpa is crouched down in the grass completely unaware of me, watching his grandkids chase each other in circles. He doesn’t know I’m watching. He doesn’t know my camera is already pointed at him. And when that look crosses his face, the one that’s equal parts wonder and pride and “I can’t believe how fast they’re growing,” I get the shot. Nobody asked for it. Nobody posed for it. It just happened because real love, when you stop trying to manage it, shows up exactly when and how it’s supposed to.
Hi, I’m Markie.
Your Bonney lake Family Photographer
As a mom of four, and auntie of many, we’re always having big family gatherings, even when it’s just Sunday night dinner. Because of this, I have a unique understanding about the importance of including aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas in your family sessions. We’ve chosen never to limit the number of people you can bring to your session, but rather arrange and price our sessions to accommodate as many people as you’d like to bring.
From small four-person family sessions, to 35+ people at your extended family session, we have worked with all the combinations in the past 16 years. Helping families plan their ideal session, with all the people they love, is what keeps this business going and our passions on fire.
The Secret Nobody Tells You About Extended Family Sessions
Here is the piece of advice that will completely change your portrait experience, and I’m not being dramatic: don’t start with a crowd.
I know. Grandma has been planning her outfit for two weeks. Your sister drove in from out of town. Everyone is excited and it feels like the natural thing to do is pull all the people you love together and photograph them immediately. But here’s what actually tends to happen when you do that. The kids haven’t settled in yet. You’re still in “performance mode,” thinking too hard about where to stand. And the extended family, with the very best intentions, ends up giving the kids directions all at once until someone’s crying and someone else is hiding behind grandpa’s legs and the whole thing feels more stressful than it should.
What works so much better is this: let your immediate family have the first half of the session together. Let the kids run. Get comfortable. Stop thinking about the camera. And then, once everyone has found the rhythm of the day, that’s when we bring the whole crew in. The reunion energy is real and alive because it’s fresh. The hugs happen naturally. The cousins immediately start chasing each other and somebody’s grandparent laughs so hard their eyes water, and I am right there for every bit of it.
As a Bonney Lake family photographer, this timing shift is one of the things I hear about most from families after they see their galleries. It keeps extended family from standing around getting restless, and it means the portraits feel like an actual gathering rather than an organized event. The difference in the images is remarkable every single time.
What Happens When Grandparents Step Into the Frame
I’ll be honest with you. When families ask me what my favorite moments to photograph are, grandparents are near the top of that list without question.
There is a specific kind of tenderness that only exists between a grandparent and a grandchild, and it simply cannot be staged. A grandma who automatically starts smoothing down a toddler’s hair the second she holds them. A grandpa who gets down on the ground to be at eye level with a three-year-old, completely forgetting his knees hurt. The look that passes between grandparents when their grandkids do something funny, that silent conversation that says “look at what we made.” These are not posed moments. You can’t manufacture them. You just have to be paying attention, and that is exactly my job.
If you have grandparents who are able to be part of your session, please include them. Have them arrive toward the middle of your time together so the energy is still good and everyone is already relaxed, and then just let me watch what happens. Some of the most breathtaking images I’ve ever delivered weren’t of the immediate family at all. They were of a grandparent watching from a few steps back, or holding a sleeping baby for the first time, or laughing at something a grandchild said that I wasn’t close enough to hear. Those are the images that get framed. Those are the ones people message me about years later to tell me what they mean.
When grandparents are involved, I’m always looking for the quiet in-between moments, not just the posed group shot. And if there’s a specific relationship or dynamic that’s especially meaningful, tell me about it beforehand. The more I know about your people, the better I can position myself to catch the magic before it disappears.
Cousins, Siblings, and the Beautiful Chaos of Everyone Together
Here is something I know to be true after years behind the lens: cousins together are an absolute gift.
The second a group of cousins arrives, the entire energy of a session shifts in the best possible way. Kids stop performing for the camera. Everyone just starts being themselves because the social pressure of “looking good in front of an adult” completely evaporates. What you get instead is real laughter, real chasing, real connection, and photographs that actually look like your family rather than a version of your family trying to impress someone.
For siblings, I love giving them a few minutes together without parents hovering nearby. These are the kids who grew up in the same house, who share inside jokes and secret languages and a bond that deserves its own space in your gallery. Same goes for the relationship between siblings across generations — an older aunt or uncle with the youngest baby, a teenage cousin who is surprisingly great with the toddlers. Documentary family photography is built on the idea that every relationship in your story matters, not just the nuclear unit at the center of it.
And if you’re worried it sounds too complicated to coordinate all those people — it isn’t. That’s what I’m there for. You don’t need to be a logistics coordinator during your family session. Tell me who you want and I’ll handle the rest. I’ve been wrangling a pretty spectacular variety of humans for a long time now, and I do it with warmth, humor, and only the occasional strategic snack bribe.
How to Make It All Come Together
The best thing you can do before your session is give me information. Tell me about the relationships that matter most. Let me know if grandpa has a harder time getting around, or if there are cousins who need a minute to warm up to strangers, or which kid is going to be the wildcard. Tell me who makes grandma laugh the hardest. Tell me if this is the first time in two years the whole family has been in the same place. The more I know, the more I can move through your session like someone who already belongs there rather than an outsider trying to figure out the family dynamics in real time.
A few practical things that make a real difference: coordinate outfits loosely so that extended family fits into your overall palette without everything looking too matching or too planned. Give everyone a heads up that this is a relaxed, documentary-style session — nobody needs to pose or perform, they just need to show up and be themselves, which is genuinely the one thing most people are really good at. If there are little ones in the mix, build in some buffer time and bring snacks, because even the most easygoing kids have moments, and those moments are not the end of the world. Honestly, some of my favorite images have come from exactly those in-between, unexpected, slightly chaotic moments.
Because here’s the thing about family photos. The value isn’t in the perfect frame where everyone is smiling at the camera at the exact same second. The value is in the record of who you all were to each other right now, in this season, with these kids at these ages and these grandparents still healthy enough to get down in the grass and play. That’s what I’m trying to give you when I show up as your Bonney Lake family photographer. Not a performance of your family. The actual thing.
If you want to see what this looks like in real galleries, head over to www.markiejonesweddings.com, follow along on Instagram at @markiejonesphotographyllc, or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mjpllc. And when you’re ready to talk about your session, I would love to hear about your people. Every family I work with becomes part of a story I’m proud to tell, and I have a feeling yours is going to be a really good one.
Reach out anytime. I’ll have the coffee on.
