How Many Outfits Should You Bring For Senior Pictures?
Let’s make choosing outfits for your senior photos less stressful!
Do you need multiple outfits for your senior session?
My answer is YES! It’s best to have multiple different outfits for your senior photos so that you can truly get a wide variety of pictures! If you only have one outfit there’s not a ton of variety you can get. Sure, you can go to different locations and do different poses, but the photos will still look a little similar if you’re wearing the same thing in all of them. When wearing multiple outfits you get to show off who you are more!
How many outfits should I bring to senior pictures?
How many outfits you bring depends on your session time and how many locations you’ll be going to, but I recommend about 2-3 outfits per location. Two should be the minimum amount of outfits you bring so you can get a little variety, but 3 is my sweet spot if we’re only going to be at one location. If we’re going to be at two locations, I still recommend 2-3 per location (so 4-6 total). I know choosing a few outfits seems like it might be hard, but I’ll make it easy!
If you only want to wear 2 outfits: choose 1 casual (something you’d wear everyday) and 1 dressy (a dress, skirt, etc) option!
If you want to wear 3 outfits: choose 1 casual, 1 dressy, and 1 trendy (something that’s super in style right now but might not be in a few years) option!
If you want to wear more than 3 outfits, look at what locations you’ll be at and think about what kind of outfit would make the location even more dreamy and magical. If you’re going to be at a beach, think about wearing a long flowy dress. If you’re going to be in a city, think about a chic look with a leather jacket. You can talk to your photographer about this and they will give you lots of helpful input!
So, 2-3 outfits per location is optimal, but you can definitely wear more if your package allows for it!
*Outfits may be limited depending on what session package you have. A lot of photographers include certain amounts of outfit changes in their packages so that you have a proper amount of time in each package and you’re not rushed.
Below is an example of 4 totally different outfits from one session that bring a wide variety of photos and truly show off her personality!
Senior Picture Outfit Ideas
Now that you know it’s great to have multiple different outfits, how should you pick them? Like I stated above, sticking to choosing a casual, dressy, and trendy option is key! That will make your life much easier when it comes to choosing what to wear. Let’s talk a little further in depth about those:
Casual Outfit Ideas: Jeans with a cute blouse, jeans with your college or high school t-shirt, jeans with a tank top and a cute jacket on top, etc. Jeans are always a good call for casual outfits. You can switch your jeans up by wearing different washes, black, or white jeans. These can be worn with sandals, Doc Martens, Nike Air Forces, flats, barefoot, or whatever you’d like! You can also add different jewelry and even a fun hat!
Dressy Outfit Ideas: A long flowy dress, a short dress, a long skirt with a blouse or sweater , a short skirt with a blouse or sweater, fun pants, a turtleneck under a dress with tights, a romper, a jumpsuit, etc. The same as above, you can switch up your footwear, add jewelry, and a hat!
Trendy Outfit Ideas: Basically, whatever you’re seeing most on your TikTok for you page and Instagram explore are trendy outfits! Think about patterned pants, 90s style, and whatever else is all the rage currently!
Other Outfit Ideas: Wear your sports uniform, your high school/college t-shirt, wear an outfit to recreate an old photo from when you were a kid, or wear something that has extreme sentimental value to you.
Again, if you’re wearing more than 3 outfits than the rest can just be outfits that you really love or that you’ve been dreaming of wearing! Your senior photos are a time to really pamper yourself and wear the things you’ve always dreamed of wearing!
Pinterest is a great place to get outfit inspiration for your senior pictures, you can find so many great outfits! If you want to get out my Pinterest outfit inspiration board, click here!
Let’s look at some examples:
A Casual Outfit Example
A Trendy Outfit Example
A Dressy Outfit Example
A Casual Outfit Example
A Trendy Outfit Example
A Dressy Outfit Example
Something to Keep In Mind…
The more outfits that you bring to your session, the more time you spend changing. Changing outfits can sometimes take 2 minutes or 10, depending on what you’re changing out of/into. If you bring along a ton of outfits or outfits that take awhile to put on, changing time is going to cut into your picture time. I highly recommend showing your photographer all of your planned outfits so they can tell you if they think there will be enough time for all of them! Some photographers photograph each outfit super fast while others take their time more. I usually spend about 30 minutes photographing each outfit, depending on how many outfits you bring along! Everyone has a different workflow to make your session experience perfect, so always keep your photographer in the loop about your ideas!
Happy Outfit Choosing!
All in all, definitely make sure you’re packing some variety into your senior photo outfits so that you get lots of fun photos! You’ll have more photos to share on social media, more to use for decoration at your gradation party, and you’ll have a bigger variety in your senior album!