Dear Dads: Family Pictures Are Not About You

You're there and you look GREAT. And yes, you helped (during the fun part) create these beautiful little goblins now in coordinating colors and hair that will last 0.5 seconds. But you would rather be literally anywhere else than some field in the middle of nowhere wrangling your children to smile. I get it. 

But my brother in Christ! This is not about you. And let me let you in on a secret: you have an opportunity to be the sexiest you've ever been to your wife. And it won't be because of whatever button-down she laid out for you. It is by simply:

~ not being a butthead ~ 

during these pictures. 

Listen, your wife sees pictures of other people's families all the time on social media. She sees them and she double taps, but she knows.... her family is cuter. She wants to PLASTER the walls of your home and the feed of her social media with these little angel baby faces. Not for vanity's sake, but because time is slipping away from her and she wants her family captured in this stage of life before it changes. And trust me, you want that too. FOR HER. These pictures will provide the type of serotonin release she needs to get through the daily grind of wiping butts and rage-cleaning the kitchen and mom guilt. Powerful, I know. 

And she knows she is the only one that wants to do this. She knows you hate it, and a part of her hates it too. It's vulnerable being in front of a camera. She'll obsess over parts of her she doesn't want to be photographed.  She'll spend too much time prowling Pinterest for outfit ideas, finding a photographer with a style she likes and a budget you'll like, and fantasizing how cute her babies will definitely look. And all you have to do is show up? You can do better than that. 

So you, my friend, are going to suck it up and do something you don't want to do. You're going to muster up every inch of love you have for this woman and you are going to be the PERFECT sidekick for these pictures. You're going to stand up straight and smile, and you're going to "interact" with every child in a candid and fatherly way. You are going to wipe boogers, fix clothes, and tuck her perfectly curled hair back in place. 

Throw a baby in the air in this God-forsaken field? You got it, photographer. Walk hand in hand across the frame for the third time? Let's do it again. 

And it doesn't stop there.

When you get these pictures, the ones you feel you paid too much for in money, time, and energy, you will exclaim with believable fervor that your wife looks like a womanly, motherly goddess. She is perfection. Wow, those outfits she went to Old Navy 3 times for really look good! Look at that one! Baby Goblin #2's smile is so cute in this one! Look at the way we look so natural holding hands in this random-ass field! Let's print this one. She looks so beautiful.  

Trust me friend, you do this and you will be the sexiest man of the year. 

Or at the very least, your wife will really, really appreciate it.


Love, 

A photographer and the wife of the sexiest man of the year.







Photo by: Amelia Hacking 


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