complimentary styling service

When you book a photoshoot with Rachelle Welling Photography, you will never have to stress about styling your session. You have access to this amazing and personalized styling service, Style and Select, which designs a wardrobe that allows you to feel fantastic for your photos. Most importantly, styling your session comes at no extra cost to you. This service is invaluable and we want you to get excited about dressing up for this special day.

Click here to visit Style & Select and enter styling code RACHELLE2023 with photographer email rachelle@rachellewelling.com to begin coordinating outfits your entire family from the comfort of your couch. No more running store to store and no more guessing! Feel free to play around with it until you have selected the perfect outfit combo! Click the shopping cart symbol on the items you like to make sure the retailer has your desired sizing and then email yourself the selected items. Or find similar items you already have in your closet. That’s it! Super easy right? Contact me if you have any questions!

what to bring

// extra outfit(s)
// make-up for touch-ups
// oil blotting sheets if you’re like me and oily AF
// champagne if you want to do a bottle opening/spray/toast (or any other fave beverage)
// any props that are sentimental to you (something handmade, heirloom pieces, a gift, etc)
// if you want to do any seated or laying down on a blanket, bring one you don’t mind getting a little dirty!
// anything fun to help tell your story and what you like to do together! examples could be a picnic basket with your favorite takeout, bathing suits to splash around in the lake, photos with your wrangler if you like to go off-roading, a colored smoke bomb, ingredients to cook s’mores, the guitar you serenade each other with, you get the idea.
// if you have your heart set on a particular image you saw on pinterest, make sure you screenshot it and show it to me at the beginning of the shoot

what to leave in the car

// hair ties
// smart watches
// gum
// wallet or anything else in your pockets

what to wear

What to wear: We love solid earth tone colors. Patterns are not the enemy, however a bold pattern will steal the show. What this means is in every photo, your eyes will gravitate first toward the loud pattern, not the connection between you. When picking solid earth tone colors, we love dark browns, ivory, rust, camel, muted mustard, sage, clay, deep forest greens, or muted rose colors, to name a few. They all photograph beautifully. One of the biggest tips when dressing families is to dress mom first. Then once you’ve got mom’s outfit picked out, move onto the others and coordinate based off of mom’s color palette. We don’t want matchy matchy but we do love color coordinating. Another way to describe this is to google “earth tone color palette” and then use that as your guide. Another tip is to mix textures. So if your dress is a smooth fabric, pick a corduroy or linen button down for your partner. A fun way to add some variety to your gallery is to bring a hat if either are you are hat people. That way we can do some with and some without so you get both looks.

Colors not to wear: I’m never going to tell you you can’t wear something. You do you. Here are some suggestions for those wondering what doesn’t always photograph well. Blue jeans. Not my favorite because too much blue can make your images' color balance look off. Light wash denim is okay, it sort of acts like a neutral. If you’re wondering what to dress your partner in instead of blue jeans, I highly recommend any tan, olive or earth tone pants. Also I’m not a huge fan of shorts at a shoot and would pick pants hands down every time. If you’re taking photos at a grassy field, I would shy away from bright white. It tends to absorb the color of whatever you’re surrounded by. So neon green grass will bounce off of the bright white fabric and make everyone’s skin tones look kinda funky. Off-white, ivory and cream tones are great. Dressing everyone in black is another color that is hit or miss. If it’s one person in black denim pants, that’s going to look completely fine. Dressing in all black or multiple family members in black tends to hide you/your bodies. I’m not afraid of bold colors (think deep jewel tones). My main tip with those colors would be to limit to one family member.