Baker Beach, San Francisco

Every year, as a family, we schedule a family photo session. My husband always jokes that there isn’t enough wall space in our home for all of the pictures we take, but I feel it’s very important. Someday, we will have family pictures for each year and when the kids are grown, I will make a book of every family picture we took together. So while we may not have the wall space now, I know we will cherish each and every single one that we take. For now, I will switch out some older pictures and replace them with some of our new ones. They are just too adorable not to!

I scheduled this session months back with one of our favorite photographers, Tara Marie. She has done every family picture we have taken since I was pregnant with Nicky as well as some of my blog pictures when she is in town. Once we found out the shooting location was Baker Beach, we were super excited to have some family pictures with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

We had never been to Baker Beach, so we weren’t aware of the fact that is was a nude beach. That’s right, you read correctly. I did not know this until we were already half way there in the car and I checked my email. Since we had already made it that far, we decided it couldn’t be that bad, and drove to our destination.

It was the most awkward and hilarious day ever. Since we were going to use these for our Christmas cards, I had everyone wear warm clothing and of course it was an abnormal 80 degrees in San Francisco. The nudist were out in full force and there weren’t many places to look besides at the sand directly. We made the 1/2 mile trek through the swarms of them and I continued to tell my kids to keep their heads down as we walked towards the bridge. By the time we made it to the shooting location, we were all dripping sweat and glistening in the sun. Everywhere we looked, there were naked people! Luckily the kids for the most part were oblivious until the end when it was time to leave.

I can’t imagine how long it took Tara to crop out each and every naked person in our shots because there were literally dozens of them, EVERYWHERE. It looks as though we were all alone on this peaceful beach having the time of our lives. It’s funny, the effort and stress that goes into these family pictures, but it freezes these happy moments in time. I can’t tell you how many times I cracked up when I was posing to smile only to be two feet away from a free flowing nudie smiling back at me. I don’t think we will ever top this story. And although, we were absolutely mortified at the fact that this happened and the kids were there, it was a hilarious honest mistake and the pictures turned out great.

Of course we didn’t plan on getting waist high in the water and didn’t bring changes of clothes. I had sand places sand should definitely not be and we drove the hour and a half back home wet and sandy. It was definitely a day to remember! Scroll down for details on my look. Today almost all of it is 30% off!

Outfit Details:

Sweater   |   J. Crew

Button Down   |   J. Crew

Stripe Top   |   J. Crew

Beret   |   J. Crew

Jeans    |   Levi’s