Your wedding day is one of the most special days of your lives – and having your dear family & friends by your side is something that makes your wedding day complete & that much more incredible! Am I right?! I know how much your family means to you, and it probably isn’t often that you are ALL together – so, we want to ensure that we get those photos for you without a doubt! Sometimes, as you can imagine – getting 50 people to cooperate in a short amount of time when they are celebrating in excitement can be like herding cattle for a photographer LOL and I mean that in the nicest way possible! Everyone is enjoying each other, reminiscing about old times & chatting up a storm. The last thing they may want to do is listen to someone they don’t even know (cough cough the photographer)…yannow? Over the years of photographing weddings, I’ve found that without proper steps set in place to handle so many people, it’s tough to get through family photos. Because of that, I have listed a few key ways to get through them quickly & efficiently! It’s SO important to get through your family photos FAST & on time because we still have photos to take afterwards – so, staying on track & time is KEY to keeping your timeline running smoothly. I’ve listed 3 key tips below that will help us help you when it comes to taking your family portraits:

 

1. Have a designated family member or (bridal party member) who knows who is who on both sides of the bride & grooms families to stay in charge of helping your photographer gather certain people for different groupings. We have a list ahead of time that we always get from the bride & groom of which groupings we are going to take, but since we don’t know all of the family members personally, it’s always great to have a designated person who knows all of the family members to help us in gathering certain folks when we need them. Instead of us going around saying “Aunt Sally…where’s Aunt Sally…who is Aunt Sally?” type of thing!
2. Ask your family members politely to hold off on the drinks at cocktail hour until after family portraits – this is extremely important! If Uncle Bob heads to the bar for cocktail hour instead of staying put for family photos, it throws things off & we have to wait for someone to wrangle him from the bar – which in turn, throws off the timeline and takes precious time away from those sweet romantic portraits we will be shooting directly after family portraits.
3. Have your officiant make an announcement directly BEFORE the ceremony starts. This is when the guests are in their seats & paying attention – so this is the ideal time to make the announcement that immediate family members need to stay at the altar for family photos directly after the ceremony is over. I recommend that your officiant makes the announcement afterwards also after the bride & groom make their way back down the aisle.

I hope you can take these tips & incorporate them on your wedding day! You will find that it will make taking you family formals run much smoother.  Happy Planning! xoxo, Chandy