One of the most difficult jobs in the wedding planning process is for your photographer. It takes a very special and highly skilled person to be able to manage and distance family members of the bride and groom who don’t get along and trying their best to be ridiculously funny to ensure that the ring bearer and flower girl is smiling when the shutter goes off. In addition to all of that, your photographer is also able to find the perfect lighting and amazing timing to point and shoot for the most amazing photos. Now let’s talk family formals…

How to do it right:

It’s easy for emotions to fly on your wedding day with all of the special requests from your family members but your photographer’s main goal is to ensure that your day is as perfect as you imagined it would be. The only way to make that happen is to have a really great plan, and an amazing team to pull it all together.

Communication:

Educating your bridal party and family of where and when the family formals will be taking place is so important in ensuring that everyone is there and makes the family formals run smoothly. The mother of the bride and mother of the groom play a crucial role in knowing where everyone is and making sure that every photo is taken, while your maid of honor and best man are important in ensuring that your entire bridal party is present as well.

Timing:

Remember that you don’t want to make guests wait long after the ceremony for you to be finished with all of your photos. So a good way to get these done is take as many photos before the ceremony as possible. If you are doing the first look then you can take all of your family photos before hand, if you are not doing a first look then you can still get a lot done. You can take all of the photos with the brides side of the family and all of the grooms side of the family separate and then after the ceremony you can take a few photos with both sides together. I always start out with the big group photos first and then narrow it down so slowly your family members can head to cocktail hour. If there are extended family members that you want photos with you can also do this during the cocktail hour or during the reception. Outside of your immediate family members it takes 3-4 minutes for each additional pose so make sure you only include the most important people for the formal family photos. Don’t worry these are not always stiff photos, they are also fun and emotional.

How to manage divorced parents:

Whether your parents are uncivilly divorced or the best of friends, it would be a good idea to start your photographs by taking individual family photos first. If your parents are friendly to each other, your photographer could take standard family shots of the bride with her parents and/or the groom with his parents, and then add in the stepparents, if applicable. The best advice I could give is to forewarn the parents ahead of time so that everyone is prepared and makes for a happy day! Also make sure to let your photographer know if there are any cases like these so they can be posed accordingly.