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How To Make Your Family Formals Easier & Faster On Your Wedding Day!

Haley Sanborn

Family formals are a must at your wedding, so how can you make them go smoothly and quickly? I give you some tips, tricks, and real-life scenarios in this post to give you more time for bride and groom portraits or get you to your reception faster!

 

1. Only Focus On Immediate Family

I know that everyone at the wedding, especially family members will want photos with you! To save time, only focus on your immediate families such as parents, siblings, grandparents, and children. If you only have a few aunts, uncles, and nieces or nephews you can include them too! Try to avoid doing photos with cousins or distant relatives at this time, we can always get pictures with them later!


2. Do More Photos During Your Reception

We tell our brides and grooms if they know they or their family want more photos we can do more at the reception! We usually find a spot in the reception area and put you both in place. We typically do this after the dances when people are on their way to get food! We'll get the DJ to announce "if you want a photo with the couple stop by on your way to get in line" and it works out great! You get all the nice family formals earlier and a photo with most, if not all of your other family and guests!


3. Make A List Of Combinations

We always get our couples to make a list with names and relations of each combination you'd like! This makes it so much easier and faster to get through the family formals! I usually make a little announcement to all the family members waiting for photos, "I'll be calling you up by name for your photo, and I have a list from the bride and groom to go through each combination!" This lets them know that I know all the combinations you want and I'll call them up!


Here's an example of how to list them out:

Bride + Groom with Bride's Parents (Sarah and Paul Smith)

Bride + Groom with Bride's Mom (Sarah Smith)

Bride + Groom with Bride's Dad (Paul Smith)

Bride with Mom (Sarah Smith)

Bride with Dad (Paul Smith)

Groom with Bride's Mom (Sarah Smith)

Groom with Bride's Dad (Paul Smith)


4. Have All The Bride Combinations Together

When creating your combinations list, something to help speed up the photos is to keep the bride in one spot for as long as possible! This is more of a tip, especially for brides with a train or longer veil! This will allow us to keep you in place with your dress behind you or laid out in front of you and we don't have to keep moving you out and back in and fixing the dress over and over again. It's not a huge deal, but it will save us all a lot of time! It's okay to scatter the groom's combinations around rather than the bride's because he can just step in and out easily!


5. Tell Your Family Members

Some family members aren't sure who you want photos with. Just to be safe, let the ones you want photos with know before the wedding day! This makes sure everyone stays around and we don't have to send anyone to go find someone who didn't stay for the photos.


6. Do Them Before The Ceremony

If you aren't doing a first look you can break it down by Bride's side and Groom's side. You'll take the family photos just with the bride and her side and just the groom and his side. This will save some time after the ceremony! Then, you'd finish the combined photos after the ceremony! If you're planning to do a first look before the ceremony, we can do your all family formals when you're done! The main difference with this option is your family has to arrive earlier if they aren't already at the venue and you get to go straight into bride and groom photos after the ceremony! (PRO TIP: Put your wedding bands on if you decide to do this option, then take them off before the ceremony)


7. Choose A Location In The Shade

The family photos are most likely to be printed by family and hung around in people's homes. You or your photographer should choose a spot at the venue with some shade, at least on your faces! This will make your formal photos more evenly toned, no one should be squinting their eyes or sweating and it overall will look much better than in a super sunny or backlit location. This will also save time by not turning people and adjusting to make sure the sun is shining on everyone the best way. It will fix all of these issues! <3


8. Tell Your Photographer About Any Family Issues

We had a wedding couple with divorced parents, they didn't get along well and I'm so glad our couple let us know! If you have any siblings, parents, or even grandparents that don't get along, let your photographer know! This will ensure no one is placed next to each other awkwardly or causes any conflict or ugly faces in your formal photos! Another option to keep things easier is to do the combinations with them separately to keep it civil.


9. Plan for at least 20 minutes

Most of the time your family formals will take about 20 minutes! We always suggest blocking out 30 minutes on your timeline to make sure we have plenty of time to get all the combinations you'd like. If you have a smaller group and it ends up taking 15 minutes, that's great! It never hurts to prepare for more time and end up needing less! This could give you more time for bride and groom portraits or get you to your reception faster!


10. Have a Cocktail Hour

This is more of a wedding day tip than how to make the photos faster, but having a cocktail hour is a great idea! This is the time your other guests will have to wait for you! Even though they won't be waiting long if you use these tips to save time for the family formals, you still have bride and groom portraits and bridal party photos to do! Cocktail hour usually consists of appetizers or some sort of snacks to hold people over for dinner and if you decide to serve alcohol, now is the time to get people started! This gives your guests something to do while they wait rather than just sitting at their table bored or getting impatient!

These are some tips and tricks we've learned over the years photographing our weddings! I'll probably think of some other things to add, but this is a great start! Save this blog post and use it for reference for your wedding day! If you thought of questions or something I should add, feel free to comment on this post! I'd love to hear your thoughts!


If you found this helpful share it with a friend! I know they'd love to hear these tips too!


Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post! <3

 

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