25th Anniversary Family Photos (And Matching T-Shirts)

The family trip to Cambodia came about because Mom decided that the absolute best way to celebrate my parents' 25th wedding anniversary would be for the whole family to get away and have grand adventures together...

...while wearing matching t-shirts.

I think Mom  knew that convincing her highly opinionated brood of children to wear the exact same thing while exploring Cambodia might be a bit of a challenge. The 7 of us tend to be of the opinion that since no one can remember our names anyways and since there's a rather strong family resemblance, we should all do our part by dressing very differently from each other at all times. Besides, you have probably in the past read about my objections to so-called "unisex tees."

The idea of matching tees was floated around on Skype calls for months before the trip, until I offered a compromise. We kids would agree to wear matching t-shirts as long as they weren't super wordy and specific. Instead of saying something like "25th Anniversary Grand Family Vacation," I suggested that they each be decorated with nothing other than a gigantic 25 on the front.

Because the number 25 carries an aura of mystery, doesn't it?

When planning out the t-shirts, I envisioned that there would be only one day during the trip that we'd all wear matching shirts. Mom said that they'd ordered red, navy, and green shirts, and I imagined that 3 or 4 of us would wear each color, and we'd form a pleasant rainbow of sorts.

In fact, the truth of the matter was that they had ordered 3 tees for each of us, so that on 3 separate days, we would all be matching.

I think it's safe to say that, after 25 years, Mom's dream of having her perfectly matched family go on jungle adventures together came true.

Now, one factor that I didn't really think of ahead of time is the kind of attention you receive when you are hanging out in Southeast Asia, obviously foreign, and wearing the exact same shirt as the 10 other people you're traveling with.

Somehow, I thought we'd be practically unnoticeable. I was mistaken. We received a number of reactions, wherever we went:

"25...25...25...everybody all the same."

"Birthday or anniversary?"

"So, what's special about 25?"

{to my mom} "Are these all your daughters?"

While getting ready for the family photo outside Angkor Wat, a couple walked by us. We overheard the lady asking, "Do you think they're 19 Kids and Counting?" and the guy laughed and scoffed, "No!"

We thought this was particularly hilarious, although I had to agree with the eye-rolling guy. We are obviously not 19 Kids and Counting because we are only 11 people wearing matching t-shirts...and we were all wearing pants.

We even made some friends because of our shirts. This couple from the Philippines, on holiday for their 3rd anniversary, spotted our group from some ways away, and had to get their picture with us.

The last whole family vacation took place back before Angel was in the picture, in Summer 2009. Mom and Dad jumped on the ever rarer opportunity to have all of us in one place and not going in 7 different directions due to work and school obligations, and we had the greatest time learning and exploring a country that 5 of us had never visited before. Even cousin Shannon got to join in on the family fun. I tried to tell her that we only brought her along in order to have our own photographer at all times, but she said that if that was indeed our nefarious plan, it had failed, because she enjoyed the trip way more than any indentured photographer ought to.

As we meandered down streets we grew used to random strangers shouting "25!!" at us. We took so many different poses of family photos because with 10 people in the photo, it is surprisingly difficult to get everyone with their eyes open at the same time...as well as all smiling and being calm instead of crazy at the same time. That actually might have been a somewhat impossible request--we've done it before (see 2013's Family Photo, where we basically look like rockstars), but we were all a little too excited about Siem Reap to pay much attention to smiling serenely for the camera.

Have you ever, for the love of your parents, worn matching outfits? How easy is it for you to take a family photo?