Family Vacation Shirts & Family Reunion Shirts: Matching Tees, Kids to 5XL

Matching shirts solve a practical problem before they make a good photo. Eighteen relatives in one bright colour are easy to pick out at a departure gate, a theme-park exit or a crowded beach, and one glance tells you if everyone made it onto the shuttle.

At a reunion the shirt does a different job: it marks who belongs to your gathering in a shared park pavilion, gives relatives who have never met an easy opener, and puts every branch of the family into one photo that looks planned.

The catch is planning. A family order has the widest size spread a print shop sees — a five-year-old and a 3XL uncle in the same box — and a deadline that does not move: the day you leave.

Build the whole order on one blank so everyone matches. Our standard tee is the Gildan 64000 Softstyle: 100% ring-spun cotton at 4.5 oz/yd², semi-fitted and true to size, in adult XS to 5XL. Its youth twin, the Gildan 64000B, is the same cotton in youth XS to XL. In the design studio with youth sizes open, the kids go on the adults’ colour row: type the grown-ups’ counts, then the children’s in the youth boxes underneath, each labelled with its estimated age.

The ages are our estimate. Gildan publishes none, and the numbers on its youth labels, such as M (10–12), are kids’ size numbers, not ages. Height beats age, because two eight-year-olds can be five inches apart, and the size finder on our custom kids’ clothing page turns a child’s age and height into a size. Between two sizes, take the larger one: a kids’ shirt that is a little big gets worn next summer too.

Two edges catch families out. A youth XL is about as wide as an adult small (19″ against 18″) but three inches shorter (25″ against 28″), so a teenager who has stopped growing usually belongs in an adult S. At the small end, there is no toddler 2T–4T tee in the studio. Under two, it is a onesie, quoted through the free quote form; for a two- or three-year-old, the youth XS is cut for an estimated four-to-five-year-old, so expect it long and roomy. Our guide to custom kids’ and baby apparel covers baby sizing in detail.

Adult 2XL and up carry a small per-piece upcharge that rises with each size; youth sizes carry none. Order 4XL and 5XL by name, for the relatives who asked.

In the online design studio the per-piece price drops at 12, 24, 50 and 100 pieces, and every colour of the same garment in one order counts toward the same price break. Youth tees count with the adult tees, so 12 adult + 12 youth tees are one 24-piece run, not two runs of 12. A youth tee is priced like the adult tee rather than below it, but every child in the order pushes the whole family toward the next break.

That is the case for one family order instead of one per household. Say three branches are meeting at a lake: 14 adults and 8 kids in navy, 10 adults and 6 kids in red, and 7 adults and 1 child in charcoal. Ordered separately, those are runs of 22, 16 and 8, priced at the 12-piece, 12-piece and single-shirt levels. Ordered together, all 46 tees get the 24-piece price, and four spares would take every tee in the order to the 50-piece price.

Only the same garment pools: 30 tees and 10 hoodies are a 30-piece tee order and a 10-piece hoodie order, not 40 of anything, and caps count on their own. A different design for each branch still pools, as long as it is the same garment.

Small families do not need a big count to make sense. No minimum on DTF and DTG — we will print a single shirt — and full-colour DTF has no setup fee, so a family of four heading to the beach is a normal order. Big reunions are where screen printing takes over: a screen-printed t-shirt runs roughly $12–$18 CAD each at 50 pieces and drops under $10 each in the hundreds. Orders in the hundreds are usually screen printed and quoted directly — through the free quote form, by email or by phone — and a large order gets the same free mockup and human designer check as a single shirt.

The designs that work are short and specific: whose family, where and when. The family name in big letters, the destination underneath and the year small is the classic because it reads from across a parking lot and the year makes it a souvenir. A few patterns, with the back left for names:

Keep the art your own. Theme-park characters, cartoon logos and brand names belong to someone else, so leave them off; the family name, the place and the year are what make the shirt anyway. A reunion shirt can also carry a family photo, such as the grandparents’ wedding picture, printed in full colour. Scan the original print instead of photographing it: our standard 11″-wide front print is made at 300 dpi, which is 3,300 pixels across.

Size matters more than style. On a family shirt the text is read from a distance, and at our standard 11″ width a ten-letter family name gets about an inch per letter; a year in thin script underneath can vanish. The youth front print is 8″ wide, so everything shrinks by about a quarter on the kids’ shirts, and hairline strokes that hold up on an adult tee can get lost on a youth S. On a DTF or DTG print a full-colour sunset costs the same as a one-colour design of the same size; on a screen-printed reunion run every ink colour is its own setup, so one or two inks keep a big run cheap.

Names turn a group shirt into everyone’s own shirt, and they make handing out the box easy. In the studio, the Team names & numbers chart does it: paste one line per person straight from a spreadsheet, such as “Louise, M”, or type the rows in, and the chart fills in the size boxes for you. Switch numbers off for names only. The name prints across the upper back.

Names can run to 20 characters, which fits “GRANDMA LOUISE” or “UNCLE RAY”. Numbers are optional and up to three digits, so they can carry something other than a jersey number: the generation (1 for the grandparents, 2 for their children, 3 for the grandkids), an age, or the last two digits of a birth year. Each personalized shirt costs a bit more than a plain one, and before you pay, the studio shows you the full chart to approve, so a misspelled cousin is caught before anything prints.

Two limits to plan around. A chart belongs to one design in one shirt colour, so if each branch wears its own colour, set each branch up as its own design with its own chart; they still count together toward the price break. And the chart lists adult sizes, so if the children’s shirts need names too, send the whole family list through the free quote form instead. Our guide on how to order names and numbers covers spelling checks and spares.

Giving each branch of the family its own colour (the eldest’s family in navy, the next in red, the youngest’s in charcoal) makes a reunion photo read like a family tree, and it costs nothing in price breaks, because every colour of the same garment in one order counts toward the same break. Two things decide which colours work.

Pick colours the kids’ shirt comes in. Not every adult colour is made in youth sizes: on today’s colour card the adult tee comes in 66 colours and the youth tee in 36. Brights in both include Daisy, Orange, Azalea, Irish Green, Carolina Blue, Red and Royal, while Heliconia, Lime, Kelly Green, Gold and Sage are adult-only. The studio tells you as soon as you open youth sizes on a colour the youth tee is not made in.

Pick colours that take the same ink. White ink reads on navy, red, royal and charcoal alike, so one version of the design covers all four. Add a pale colour such as Daisy or Light Blue and that branch needs a dark-ink version: a second design to proof and, on a screen-printed run, its own ink setup. On a trip, where spotting each other matters more than the photo, a bright colour beats navy or black, which plenty of strangers are wearing too. The page to design your own t-shirts online shows the tee in its colours.

One person owns the list. Send a single form or shared sheet to every household asking for each person’s name and size, plus age and height for the children, with a deadline a week out. Ask for sizes written in full, “Adult M” or “Youth M”, because a bare “M” from a parent could mean either, and the two are different shirts.

Send the size chart with the form; the studio’s chart has adult and youth tabs. The easiest way to use it is to lay a favourite tee flat, measure across the chest an inch below the armholes and from the top of the shoulder to the hem, and match those two numbers. The tee is semi-fitted, slightly slimmer than a boxy heavy-cotton tee, so anyone between two sizes who likes a looser fit should take the larger one. Our t-shirt size guide goes deeper on fit.

Order children the size they will be on the trip, not the size they are today; if the trip is months away, the next size up is often the right call. Collect each household’s share before you place the order rather than after the box arrives, and keep the list: with names on the backs, it doubles as the hand-out sheet. Our guide on how to organize a group apparel order covers the form, the deadline and the money.

Standard turnaround on clothing is 1–2 weeks. Most apparel orders can rush — 4–5 business days or 1–3 business days, priced at checkout — and every order shows the dates it will be ready before you pay. Add shipping, which is quoted for your postal code and shown before you pay, plus a few days of slack, and the comfortable plan is to approve the order about three weeks before you leave. Counting back:

If the date is already close, that is what the rush options are for; their price and ready dates show at checkout. A reunion of a couple of hundred is the opposite case: plan it on the standard schedule and put the date in the quote form. If relatives in different cities want their shirts before the travel day, say so there too; each address is quoted for shipping.

We ship Canada-wide, including the Greater Toronto Area and Greater Montreal, and you can ask us about pickup in Ottawa. Everything is printed and decorated in-house in Ottawa, and nothing is drop-shipped from overseas, so there are no cross-border customs holds or surprise duties.

Every adult tee in the studio comes in two fabrics, and the trip decides which:

Cotton is the default for good reasons. It is soft, it comes in the most colours, and it is the only fabric the youth tee is made in, so for a photo with kids in it, keep everyone in cotton: the two tees are different blanks, dyed separately, and a polyester navy rarely matches a cotton navy exactly. Polyester earns its place on hot, wet days, such as an adults-only beach week or a hiking trip, because it is lighter and dries far faster than cotton. Our guide to the best t-shirt fabric for printing goes further.

You do not choose a print method in the studio: we pick DTF, DTG or screen printing for the fabric, the quantity and the artwork, and the free mockup shows the result first. For cold cottage evenings or a Thanksgiving reunion, the same design goes on a hoodie (50/50 fleece or 100% polyester) or a crewneck (50/50), both with youth sizes in the 50/50 fleece; each counts toward its own price breaks, separate from the tees.

Care is the same for both fabrics: wash cold and inside out, then tumble dry low or hang dry. The cotton tee is preshrunk, but cotton can still shrink a little in a hot wash or dryer, which is one more reason to size children up rather than down.

Caps. The studio’s trucker cap is a one-size snapback with a structured front and a mesh back, adjustable from hat size 6⅝″ to 7⅝″ (about 21″ to 24″ around), so it is a grown-ups’ piece rather than a kids’ one. The front panel takes a design about 4″ wide, half an inch above the brim, so use the shortest version of your artwork: the family name or the year, not the whole shirt layout. Caps count toward their own price breaks.

Tote bags. A cotton or canvas tote per household works as a beach bag on the trip or a welcome bag at a reunion, with the same artwork as the shirts. Totes are quote-only; see custom tote bags and send the count through the quote form.

Babies. Onesies from newborn to 24 months are quoted the same way. Name the family’s shirt colour when you ask: the onesie is a different blank with its own colour range, so the match is worth checking on the mockup.

The same planning carries over to the other matching-shirt dates in a family’s year, from bachelor and bachelorette party shirts to matching Christmas shirts.

You can design the shirts yourself, free, at yayaprints.ca/mockup-creator: upload a logo or artwork, place it on a real garment, add print-quality text, choose colours and sizes, and order online without emailing or phoning anyone. For a family order, open the studio with youth sizes ready, add the adult and kids’ counts on each colour row, build the names chart, and watch the price update as you go.

Every order gets a free digital mockup on the actual product before any payment, and nothing prints until you approve it. A human designer reviews every order before it goes to press, checking resolution, colour, sizing and placement, and either fixes the file or tells you what is wrong. Onesies, totes, names on youth shirts and reunions in the hundreds go through the free quote form, or call 613-666-YAYA (613-666-9292); we serve customers in English and French. For the shirt itself, from blanks to print methods, see our t-shirt printing service.