Every year around our wedding anniversary, I make a photo book documenting the activities of the previous year. These photos include both our daily adventures to grand travels of the year.

As I get ready to make this photo book, I scroll through my phone looking for print-worthy photos that show the fun we had throughout the year. We aren’t always great at remembering to pull out our camera throughout the trip or activity, so some years it seems hard to really encapsulate what all we did.

When we visited Paris in 2018, I booked a photographer through Flytographer and have been hooked on using a professional photographer on family vacations ever since!

Flytographer offers 30/60/90/120 minute photography sessions all over the world! Each session length comes with a set number of digital files (although I’ve always ended up with more photos than the number that comes with the package).

Knowing that we have a session planned for the trip takes the pressure off capturing the “perfect” family photo from strangers or selfies. The rest of the trip can be simply enjoying the moment, or taking photos of Emmett being cute.

Using a professional photographer for family vacations also ensures that everybody gets in the photos – including the memory makers.

A professional photographer is also local to the area and knows all the perfect spots for an ideal family photo (and how to get those “iconic” shots for the locale).

In San Diego, we shot at Scripps Pier, and in Paris we did the Trocadéro route. In both of these spots, the photographers were super familiar with the area and were able to get all the shots we were wanting.

Disneyland and Walt Disney World are also ideal family vacations to hire a photographer. It might take a while before these are easy to book thanks to the reservation system and lack of annual passport at Disneyland.

In addition to capturing posed family photos, photographers are able to capture the candid moments. Emmett was not interested in smiling for the camera, he wanted to run the beach and get messy. Some of my favorite photos are ones where Emmett is simply running the beach and having fun.

I’m now hooked on getting family photos whenever we go on vacation. The photos are always frame worthy, and capture those amazing family memories.