Today is my daughter’s Kindergarten picture day. For preschool the past two years I’ve been all set for picture day with an idea of what to have my daughter wear. This year, nothing was coming to me. I was rejecting many of her new clothes as unsuitable for a picture. Too white, too busy, too plain, words or images that might be partially cut off, etc.
Finally, I asked her what she wanted to wear. I think she picked a great outfit that I would not have thought of. Unfortunately, it meant doing laundry last night. There were a few other options in the load, so I let her make a final choice this morning. She stuck with the outfit she had asked to wear.
We were lucky with her preschool to get great photographs for two years. The first year I was really concerned laying out the money without seeing the pictures. That year I was 90% thrilled. The 10% disappointment was that I had not realized it was going to be a fully body shot and had sent her in school shoes for the playground instead of nicer shoes. I learned for the second year and sent her with a pair of shoes for pictures and a pair for the playground. I was 100% thrilled with the pictures that we received. Her preschool used Jack’s Portraits from Adrian. He takes the pictures in a fall theme and with actual props – last year she sat on a stump, had (fake) leaves covering her feet, and pumpkins around her instead of a flat background.
This year, she is in Kindergarten so it is a learning curve again. Her school is using SchoolPictures.com. There prices were lower than Jack’s Portraits and they also return a percentage to the school. I hope the pictures turn out great. All of the promotional materials show pictures from shoulders or mid-torso up, so I didn’t worry about her shoes (which is good because she really needs new fall/winter shoes and not her summery shoes). I also asked a few parents with older children who said it was the “traditional school pose” and not a full-body shot
So far I am really liking SchoolPictures.com. I was able to place my order online instead of sending in a form. I do wish there were more options to customize my package. For example, I use 8x10s for us and the grandparents and 5×7 for her aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, and my husband’s office. We don’t use the 3x5s, the 2×3 wallets or the smaller exchange prints. I wish we could have swapped them for the extra 5x7s that I needed instead of having to add to my order. Ideally, I would like to see the packages offered as 5 sheets, 4 sheets, etc. and letting you pick which size combinations you wanted. I guess with the way they price it they get people to order extra sheets.
SchoolPictures.com offers one of 6 backgrounds that is chosen when you place your order. I decided to wait until this morning to place my order so I knew what she was wearing before selecting the background. After she and dad left for school this morning, I placed the order and discovered that on picture day you cannot select the background online and need to send a note or they use the default stone gray background which will not match her dress very well.. Fortunately, my husband drives her to school so I was able to call him and have him put a note in her bag. Hopefully it makes it to the photographer. Had I realized that before she left for school this morning, I probably would have used the paper order form this morning to ensure we got our background.
So what are my picture day tips:
- Find out what type of picture they take – full-body shot, head shot, shoulders up, etc and dress your child accordingly
- Find out the picture background – color, theme, etc. so your child matches it
- Have your child eat breakfast before getting dressed to minimize the chance of any spills on picture clothes
- If you are ordering online, order before the day of so that any options for picture taking are known ahead of time
- Make sure the picture outfit has been tried on (if new) and is clean at least the day before picture day
