Why a Mini Session is Ideal for Young Families

Life in this season is BUSSSYYY. While raising multiple children, possibly all in different sports and slightly different life seasons for them- it feels nearly impossible to carve out time for a full family session, especially during the prime sunset hours, when most outdoor sports activities are taking place. Rather than skip family photos, this might be the season where you lean into family Mini sessions instead!

Mini sessions are a quick, stress-free, time-efficient way to capture precious family memories! 

What is a Family Mini Session?

If you value high quality photos, but may be short on time, or on a budget then a Mini session is perfect for you! Mini session timing may vary slightly by photographer, but for me, they are 20 minute sessions which is perfect timing to capture a few different poses of your entire family unit, as well as an individual portrait of each child.

 Mini sessions are different from full sessions as far as the amount of variety we can get. Such as, in a full family session, we would get plenty of different poses of the full family, and many break outs like Mom with all the kiddos, dad with all the kiddos, all the kiddos together, kiddos separate, just mom and dad, playful images, multiple background options at the location etc.. Mini sessions focus more on the most important groupings to you, and we generally stay in one spot for the 20 minutes. While you still get a variety of options, especially for such a short session, it is different than a full session!

The Benefits of a Family Mini Session for Young Families

• Quick and Easy: Mini sessions allow families to get beautiful photos without dedicating an entire afternoon or day to photos.
• Stress-Free Experience: The shorter time frame keeps kids engaged and prevents them from getting too restless or bored.
• Budget-Friendly: Mini sessions are often more affordable than full sessions, making them more accessible to families on a budget.
• Perfect for Milestone Moments: Mini sessions are ideal for capturing milestones like birthdays, Fall family photos, and holidays.

Mini Sessions may NOT be a good fit for your Family if:

You have kiddos that need more time to warm up to the camera, a new setting, or new people (aka the photographer). If you have a kiddo that needs more time, it will be far less stressful to schedule a full session, and allow them to have the time to take breaks away from the camera, explore, and become comfortable with the environment, and the photographer! You will be so much less stressed, and get better images when you book with your child’s needs in mind!

You have a large family, especially with a lot of smaller children. If you have more than 5 total family members, I generally recommend a full session. Unless you truly only want a few images of the entire family together, then you’ll need more time to get individuals of every kiddo, a variety of group images, and it just takes a bit more time to get more people in the right places, and swap poses etc. If you have multiple children that are toddler age and younger, 20 minutes tends to feel a little rushed and wild. I do plenty of mini sessions with multiple children that are small, I think just adjusting expectations here is important. The mood your kiddo is in when they arrive will likely be the mood in the photos. We may not always get the “perfect” smiling at the camera in multiple poses images, and we may need to embrace more authentic, beautiful images of your family, just the way you are! This might mean more movement, more embracing what they need, more connection focused..which are actually my favorite images to capture 🙂

Ready to book your next Mini Session with me? Contact Trisha here

See more family images by Trisha

Here are some beautiful images of real families with “littles” of all ages from our gorgeous Beachy Minis this year!