Sea Island Extended Family Pictures in 2025
One of the best things about living in the Golden Isles is that there’s no shortage of beautiful locations for extended family photoshoots. I absolutely adored working with this fun family for their Sea Island extended family pictures. This family decided to vacation in Sea Island to celebrate their 50th anniversary and document their time here with a family portrait session. I was honored to have been invited to share in some of their time while here.
When you have your family portraits done it should be a relaxed and fun experience. Especially when it comes to young kids! This is one of the reasons why Sea Island is a favorite for family sessions. And you don’t have to stick to the beach. St. Simons is a short drive away and has magestic oak trees with spanish moss that blows in the breeze. These also make great portrait spots.
The happy couple celebrating their 50th anniversary while in Sea Island
Sea Island Family Picture Tips for Small Kids
After nearly 14 years of photographing children, I’ve learned lots of great tips for getting them to not only cooperate, but to have fun doing so!
- Try to push naptime to later in the day if possible. Especially during the summer, when sunsets aren’t until around 8:30, kids will do better with a later nap. This way when they wake up, it will be time to eat supper and then head out for your session. This is often easy to do when you’re on vacation. Between playing at the pool, or the beach – you’ll be getting back to your cottage or hotel room later in the day than normal.
- Dress them comfortably and temperature-appropriate. Nothing makes kids more cranky than when they are overheated or cold. And this being Sea Island, it’s most heat that we’ll be dealing with the majority of the year.
- Let the children play – and have fun! I will always discuss your preferences during your consultation, but typically find that my Sea Island families like a mix of both candids and formals during their portrait session. So we’ll typically start with the formals while kids are still warming up and fresh. These are the ones with everyone looking and smiling. Then, we’ll spread out on the beach and photograph individual families and various groupings. You’ll see me following around behind the littles, interacting with them on their terms and capturing some sweet in-between moments. Often these end up being some of your favorites (and mine!).
- Lastly, NO bribes. This is my biggest rule. If we start a session with bribes already given…then we’ve likely lost. We lose all bargaining power. I will often have parents bring a favorite snack/treat or toy and we will hide it to pull it out later if needed. But with the other top-secret tips that I use at every session with littles – we rarely need to even pull them out!
Want to see what a typical gallery looks like when you have pictures of an extended family on vacation in Sea Island?
Fun, candid photos of Mamas with their toddlers is a must!
Each family always gets their little “mini session” within the portrait session of the whole group.
And if there’s a newlywed couple celebrating their 2nd honeymoon, we’ll photograph them, too!
We are also going to try our best during your extended family pictures to make sure that we get all of the Mamas photographed with their babies. Because Mamas, we know that you are typically the one behind the camera and not in front of it!
Just another set of portraits of a loving Mama photographed with her children – who happen to be 3 beautiful daughters – we even took some portraits of each of them!
Aren’t these just the cutest little (and best dressed!) brothers you’ve seen on the beaches of Sea Island??
Like I said, the cutest little set of brothers right here!
Another family…another cute set of siblings. This family was the best!
Always going to grab candids while at an extended family session in Sea Island. You think I might not be looking when you’re goofing off or having fun…but I’ve got eyes in the back of my head!
Okay, I *think* this is the last pictures I’m sharing from these three brothers. They were just so much fun!
Always going to grab those portraits of grandparents with their grandchildren. These are always my favorites. The love and the legacy at which they have created. It all started with two people who fell in love. Yes…I’m a total sapp righ tnow.
As the sun drops and we have those last few minutes of light available, I’m going to grab those beautiful reflection portraits at the ocean’s edge. I mean – aren’t these just so beautiful to look at?
Let’s not forget the lovely couple celebrating their 50th anniversary in Sea Island – adding in their adult children is a must. And then the whole group…again…but let’s make it *silly*
Few more sunset beach portraits in Sea Island
We were just about out of light on this beautiful evening in Sea Island, but we made it work to grab a last few groupings in front of their Sea Island vacation cottage.
To close this beautiful Sea Island extended family session out, I made sure to get just a few more beautiful sunset portraits of this fun couple who were celebrating their 50th anniversary in Sea Island on their vacation.
