Medieval Family Costumes

This year we decided to do medieval family costumes for Halloween. We had a king, queen, princess, archer, knight and dragon.

We started to plan medieval family costumes in August. It was actually the day before school started. We had a back-to-school dinner, father blessings and voting for our 2023 family costumes. Doesn’t everyone do this? I will say that there is always one person each year that is really gung-ho on the theme and they kind of get everyone psyched about the theme. Between extracurriculars and a sibling’s wedding we knew our fall would be packed so planning early was essential.

Location- Medieval Family Costumes

I was wondering how I could find a castle in Florida. Of course, if you say we’re going to “The Castle” it mean’s Cinderellas and that wasn’t the vibe I was going for. I learned about some fun places like Solomon’s Castle . I also know there is Castle Ottis (which would have actually been an amazing backdrop but would have required even more prep) or Fort Matanzas but we ultimately settled on the Fort in St. Augustine. St. Augustine is so iconic and beautiful that I really love that we have family pictures there.

We did pictures inside the fort at first. Some of the kids had never been to the fort so it was an educational experience as well. The kids all picked their own locations around the fort where to be photographed. There was a lot of variety. After the fort closed, we were able to do some pictures outside as well. It was a beautiful evening to walk around.

The girls went into the fort with our castles on and the boys put their costumes on once we got into the fort. We wanted to minimize wear on the dragon’s costume especially. I think some people thought we were going to put on a show. When people realized there was no show our appearance at least put on smile on people’s faces.

Medieval Family Costumes

All of our costumes were from Halloween Costumes except for my oldest. Her costume was from Amazon. We got some shoes from Nordstrom Rack, DSW, accessories from Claires and a few pieces that we already owned. We reused the bow and arrow from last year’s Halloween costumes. My son was ecstatic he got an oversized sword as part of his costume. My cute dragon was excited when I told him I would make him breathe fire for the photo.

By the way, speaking of last year’s costumes. Remember how I said my sister-in-law was the same thing as us last year. Well, we did it again unintentionally. I guess great minds think a like. My sister-in-law and her family did a medieval theme again. We had two little dragons that are similar in size and wore the same costume. They were so cute. I’m telling ya we need to do a big group family costume one year.

Cannon versus Trebuchet

I guess I learned when the medieval period was. When I first started thinking about what costume to wear, I had some characters in mind but learned that I really needed to be thinking 900-1400 AD. I considered being Merlin, a plague doctor or Joan of Arc but ultimately decided to be a generic medieval queen. I also learned that cannons were not used widespread until the 13th century. It would have been best had we found a trebuchet to take pictures with, but I did not succeed in finding one. Trebuchet’s were invented in the 4th Century BC and used until the 15th century AD. It was great to read and learn a little bit more about medieval history.

Fire in Photoshop

It’s always a challenge to take our own family pictures. But I do like how I can do it whenever we need the photos. This year I challenged myself to do a little more with photoshop and added fire for my dragon. I used this tutorial on Youtube to add the fire. I knew before we took photos that I wanted to at least try to add fire to the photos. With that in mind, we made sure the dragon had enough space in front of him to add fire.

My kids watched me edit the photos and they all wanted me to add fire to each of their photos. The knight had blue fire- he wanted me to share that photo and I said, “no knight’s don’t really have fire breathing out of them.” He said, “well the dragon doesn’t really have fire coming out him either.” Touché- but still the blue fire breathing knight is not shared.

I am a little nervous because I think people in my family think when we do Harry Potter for Halloween, I’ll be able to make Patronus’s for everyone or make us all fly. My photoshop abilities will really be tested then. All in all Halloween 2023 was a success.