Family photographer Allison Burriss was under a lot of pressure to do a promotional shoot for her photography business. But her kids were not interested in participating.
“My kids were overtired, overdone. It was super late. It was about to be their bedtime,” Burriss tells TODAY.com.
Burriss turned to a tried and true parenting method: bribery.
“I had my husband go upstairs and get them ice cream,” she says. “We fed them ice cream just to get them to cooperate, and then it just turned into so much fun!”
That’s right — she snapped photos while her husband Zach spoon fed ice cream to their kids: Makenzie, 7, Kaiden, 4, and Cambria, 1.
Cambria, Makenzie and Kaiden couldn’t contain their excitement about having ice cream before bedtime.Allie Bean Photography / Allison Burriss
“My youngest was 13 months at that time, and she just never had ice cream before, so it was like a novelty to her,” Burriss explains. “And then the other two were just laughing, getting scoops continuously from my husband so I could get a cool picture for my clients to see what I was offering them.”
Burriss then posted a video of the super sweet family session on Instagram on October 21 that racked up 700,000 views and a ton of wholesome comments:
“This is a strategy I can get behind. 😂” “WORTH IT. ❤️❤️❤️ Listen all rules go out the door for family photos.””Diligently taking notes for our Christmas session. 🤣”
Then client — and friend — Lauren Sewell announced that she would be bringing ice cream to her family photo session. Burriss posted a video of that session on Nov. 13 and it has over 12 million views.
“Her youngest son, he never smiles like the way she wants him to smile,” Burriss explains. “He always like curls his lip under. You know how kids do that?”
Unsurprisingly, having ice cream immediately transformed his curled lip into a giant smile.
Full disclosure: the 8-year-old reading over the shoulder of this reporter just said, “Mommy, can you try that ice cream trick on me?”