Budget & Covid friendly DIY Maternity Milk Bath Photoshoot

I did not want to have a traditional maternity photoshoot but did want to find some way to commemorate this pregnancy in case it's our last...so I started to search for unique maternity photoshoots only to find that local photographers were truly charging $300-500 for 30 minute shoots!

Yeah...not gonna happen.

Then COVID hit and the chance of us having a professional shoot completely went out the window, leaving us with just two real options:

1) Don't have a shoot at all

2) Do it DIY style

So... I began to search for DIY maternity photoshoot options that could be done for the low (read: inexpensively) and completely fell in love with the idea of doing a milk bath. Since I'd also decided that I wanted to use our maternity photoshoot as our gender announcement - I was even more excited about the outcome.

Fast forward a few weeks and we are all ready for our shoot! Here's how we pulled it off for less than $100.00.

Basics you'll need:

• 2 Gallons of Whole Milk @ $2.50/gallon

• An assortment of flowers: $10-20 You can use real flowers or silk flowers - I opted for real flowers and picked up a few bouquets from Trader Joes and Jewels

• Ladder or stool to stand on while taking pictures

• Camera

Optional:

• A flowy maternity gown (only optional because you can totally do this shoot in the nude or in a bra/undies)

• Powdered Milk: You can use this to make your water milkier and whiter

• Fruit: I used a few lemons

• Hair accessories

• Lighting enhancements

Our actual costs:

• 2 Gallons of Whole Milk $5

• 1 canister of powdered milk $4

• 1 flower crown $12

• 2 lemons $1

• 5 bouquets of flowers (I wanted to do a scene with my favorite flowers and a scene with gender colored flowers) $20

• 2 maternity gowns (again, because I wanted to be extra with an additional scene, lol) $40

Total Cost: $82

eighty two dollars, sis! And we totally could have pulled this off for $30-40 without the extra flowers, flower crown, or gown.

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On to the shoot!

We decided to do ours late (~11pm 😴) so that our daughter would be sleep and wouldn't be a distraction. We took about 2 hours from start to finish to complete the entire shoot- 30 minutes went to getting the milk ready in the tub, and cutting, sorting, and attempting to sink-proof the flowers and we spent about 90 minutes in the actual shoot with a wardrobe change in between.

Setting up the bath was easy - my hubby filled the bath about 1/4 full with warm water and then poured in the powdered milk and gallons of whole milk. We had to wait about 15 minutes after this is complete for bubbles from the milk to go away. While we waited, I cut up the flowers and sorted them out and my hubby took a few test shots to play with our lighting.

After that, things went pretty smoothly and we had a lot of fun together. Not only did doing this shoot DIY style help us save a TON of money, it also helped us bond and have fun together. It's amazing how much more comfortable I felt shooting with my hubby and being in awe of how great of a photographer he is. Covid-19 or not, I'd recommend doing this on your own just for the bond you'll have with your partner :)

Here's a look at our finished product!

P.S

It's a BOY!