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When I was 5 years my old extended family took a photo together. It consisted of my parents, my mother parent's, my mother's mother's parents, and various great-aunts, second cousins, and so on. I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandparents - my great-grandma was rocking cool, in fact. I even knew my mother's father's mother (still with me here?) but she had advanced Alzheimers, was in a home as she used to eat soap, and thought I was my mother. She thought my mother was my grandma. She didn't know who the hell my grandma was. This story isn't nearly as comically tragic as my stepmom's, though - my stepmom's grandma thinks my stepmom is her daughter. As for our Obaba (my stepmom's mom and the grandma's daughter), the grandma thinks she's a cigarette.

Our family photo was in the 70's, and should you have thrown a lit match into the room the whole studio would have gone up in a wall of flames - having been lit into action by the sum total of massive sideburns in the room, it would have been turned into a raging inferno courtesy of the wall to wall polyester blends everyone was wearing.

It would perhaps have been a justified reaction, considering the number of leisure suits in the room.

Saturday didn't have so much polyester. It didn't actually have any polyester, as far as I can tell. What it did have was an awful lot of chaos.

It started early in the morning. My stepmom helped get babies ready while the rest of the house raced about. Jeff decided to wear a shirt I'd bought him, but naturally his trousers had a spot on them. Angus wore a nice shirt and jeans. I wore a bright teal shirt, my gorgeous new necklace, and some fitted jeans as well

Melissa decided that the photo shirt was the perfect moment for a bout of teenage rebellion. She chose a tank top in colors that truly mourned the loss of the 60's. It was also too tight. I asked her if maybe she didn't want to borrow something of mine but she put her foot down. She even had her hair up in a horrifically messy scarecrow like ponytail, but luckily some wheedling from her dad made her take it down.

Off we went, to a location in Dorking (the name, god, the name!) As we were driving in the rain, I looked at the clock.

It was 10:30 am.

"Aren't the photos at 12?" I asked Angus.

"No, they're at 11," he replied.

We made some calls. Turns out the photos were at noon. We would have an hour to kill in Dorking with two teenagers and two infants.

We hopped into Starbucks to feed the babies and fill ourselves up with caffeine. I had packed the babies' food and stupidly forgot some fruit, which they always finish off a meal with. If they don't finish off a meal with fruit, there is anger.

Angus bought a piece of carrot cake for them.

This turned out to be a good move, as it put them on a sugar high and were in a fabulous mood, up until they crashed.

We walked to the studio, where we waited for the others. The photographer came out to meet us.

"There are 16 of us coming," I tell her.

"Excellent!" she says cheerfully.

"No really. 16 of us." I warn her.

Then the hoards arrive. And the decibel range goes up substantially. The photographer's smile wavers.

"Can I get everyone's attention?" she asks.

All you can hear is "Let me say hello to you, darling, how are you?" and "Hello you! How's things?" and "Oh my! Look how grown-up you look?"

"Hello?" the photographer asks louder.

"I say, don't you look smart?"

"I really like your hair like that!"

"I see you have the older model of Nokia phone. How out of touch."

The photographer is no longer smiling.

"Bet you wish you'd had a liquid lunch," I murmur to her.

"You have no idea." she mutters.

When she finally rounds us into the studio we peel off our shoes and socks and get on the giant white part of the room. From there, we descend into madness - many of the family shots consist of all of us tickling one person. Or pushing someone into a wall. Or jumping up (very easy to do with ten month olds). It's good fun, although very warm in the room, but I struggle to see how we're going to get one photo where all of us are looking largely normal.

All of the grandkids have their photos together, with Nick and Nora sitting in front. They're a little stunned by everything going on, although in fairly good moods. But all the people, lights, and setting mean they're not 100% sure of what's going on, and getting huge gummy/toothy smiles out of them isn't easy.

"Helen, can't you get the twins to smile?" I'm asked.

"Oh sure!" I say cheerfully. "Let me get my remote out. I currently have their reactions set to 'stunned', I can see that I should change it to 'smile for the picture'."

Then the kids are set into photos with their siblings only. Nick and Nora are wrapped in the English flag and the American flag. Then they're cuddled by Melissa and Jeff. Melissa and Jeff wouldn't take a good photo together, so we have one of them arm-wrestling. It should work.

By the end of it we're exhausted and I know this whole lot are headed to our home to enjoy venison stew, risotto, and a strawberry bread I made. I didn't know at the time that everyone at our house entailed 5 year-olds jumping on beds and walking in the nursery with muddy shoes on (despite my instructions) but at least we survived the photo session.

We go to view the proofs in a few weeks. I had planned to get several copies, but upon learning the price I think I've changed my mind. The smallest photo is £150. Their largest is £5,000. For £5,000 a photo better be made of gold, should spout rivers of champagne when I pull a lever, and should offer me oral pleasure any time I ask. £5,000 does not go on a wall.

-H.

PS - Pereiraville, who has long been a commenter here, has joined Team In Training to train for the Disney marathon in January whose goal is to raise money to help fight blood born cancers. Read here for more details, but it's a very worthy cause.