the Price of Christmas Portraits

My sister and I got our two families together to get our picture taken for our parents and grandparents for Christmas. We had 10 people in the picture, plus a really nice Santa from the studio. The main cost was for the sitting fee with so many people, we paid a flat fee, plus per person over 6 people (not including the Santa). We chose just a few photos since it was mainly for the gift. We got 2 8x10 photos, 2 5x7 photos and they threw in the printed proofs which were about 6 3x4 pictures.

The photography studio did a good job once we were all there and in the studio. They seemed to have some mix up about the time and I guess that was in the scheduling side of things. In the end, the photographer we worked with did a good job and got a portrait that was very nice of the whole family, including the young kids. The Santa did his job keeping the kids happy and it was a fairly pleasant experience overall. They did try pretty hard to sell us more photos than the package and the price would've just about doubled. But since we were more interested in just the 2 gift pieces, we were happy with what we got.

The frames at the photography studios are very nice, but very expensive. You can get decent frames at many stores and do it yourself for a fraction of the cost. We found that we could get the 2 8x10 photos framed at a local craft store (with a coupon) for a very good bargain price.