Hah, the irony! I've struggled with this problem forever and only found a solution a few days ago!
Use the magidisplaytrays from ofb - you know, the clear ones that are made to sit on counters. Place a sim on it then you can move them as close as you want to another sim without them snapping to their hand.
Something else I discovered - you can place the trayed sim on any of the OMSP blocks (from MTS) to have them appear at different heights for picture purposes. For example, you can make a toddler look like it's sitting on a bed if you put the tray on the OMSP for beds.
Oh, and you'll have to have an invisible recolor for the magidisplaytray, if you don't want to see it in the picture. I don't remember where I got mine from.
It shouldn't be too hard to hunt down though.
One last thing, While on the tray, the sim becomes uninteractable, so if they're in the middle of going something with another sim, you might want to take them off the tray before unpausing.