What Goes Into Creating a Gallery Wall

Gallery walls are a beautiful focal point in any home. It’s a collection of framed portraits of the people who are the most important to you. Once you have yours in place, anyone who walks into our home will immediately be drawn to the real stars: your family. When you look at a gallery wall, you might not realize the work that goes into creating one. You don’t just print any old image and slap it in a frame from Amazon. Crafting the perfect gallery wall takes careful planning and execution. 

With my full-service photography studio, I guide my clients through this process all the time. I’ll share the basic steps for creating a custom gallery wall for your home here. If you’re thinking about an album, I explain that process here.

Planning Your Portrait Gallery Wall

First, we must begin with the end in mind. I usually start by asking my clients a couple of questions to guide us in the right direction.

Where will your gallery wall live? – This gives us the size we are working with.

What is your home’s style? – This offers us guidance frame choices.

How do you want to feel seeing your gallery wall? – Do you want to feel proud of your beautiful family? Laugh every time you see these portraits? This helps us choose the appropriate photos.

After answering these questions, we can plan for our photo session. We have an idea of the style and feel we want for these portraits, which helps me guide you in what to wear and gives us great direction for the session day to document images that embody every emotion.

Designing For Your Space

Our session day will result in many beautiful images to choose from. After your session, we’ll go through your images and find your favorite ones. The ones that make you feel proud of your beautiful family or showcase your children’s personalities or both. During your Selection appointment, I use software that lets me create mock-ups so you can see how your artwork will look on the walls of your own home. You’ll feel confident in your choices and look forward to seeing your artwork once it’s installed. 

Hanging Your Portrait Groupings

Hanging your artwork can be a major undertaking and sometimes creates a headache. You’ll need a level, painter’s tape, hammer, and nails. Depending on the gallery wall’s location, you might even need a ladder. Before you even lift the hammer, use the painter’s tape and level to map out the gallery wall carefully. Once the design is mapped out on the wall, you can start to hammer. This project can take a couple of hours from start to finish.

My full-service portrait session process includes the delivery and installation of your gallery wall. You can leave this entire project to me, and you will be presented with professionally installed heirloom artwork without any stress.

Your Gallery Wall Through the Years

We know our kids keep growing and changing, so what about next year and the year after that? We help you create a vision for future sessions based on the ages and stages of your children and the design vision for your home. Our pieces are curated to look good now and be able to move throughout your home (or move to a new home!) as we add to your family collection over time. 

DC Family Portrait Gallery Wall

As I stated before, a professional family portrait gallery wall is the focal point of your home. Your family and guests alike will be drawn to this beautiful display. I would love to create this for you, from beginning to end, without adding any work to your already busy schedule. 

The first step is a Discovery Call. Click here to schedule yours.