Top 3 Wedding Tips for Stress Free Family Photos

The family photos taken on your wedding day will be cherished as time passes. They serve as both a record of the loved ones who came to celebrate with you and an opportunity to take professional photos that show off just how good-looking your family is. Whoot Whoot! Stress free family photos are possible with a bit of planning.

Making the process of capturing these photos enjoyable is important. You don’t want to look back at those photos and only remember how stressed you were. You want to remember how happy and thankful you were to have those people with you to celebrate.

Below are my top five tips for a stress-free formal family portrait session.

PLAN WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

I mean, duh, right? But seriously. I always tell my couples beforehand that I allocate about 30 minutes for family portraits, which gives me time to photograph 10 groupings well. If my clients have more than 10 groupings, we need to build more time into the wedding timeline for this part of the day to ensure stress free family photos.

Tip: Keep it to immediate family only. Immediate family includes parents, siblings, and grandparents. If your siblings have spouses or children, they would be included as well. If there is an extended family member or guest (such as a Godmother) who is very special to you, feel free to include a shot with them. For the rest of your extended family and friends, plan to take some informal photos with them during the reception. The fewer people you include in your family portrait time, the less stressful it will be!

Helpful Hint: You should also discuss the style of the portraits with your photographer. You should have a good idea of your photographer’s style by now, but sometimes the couple and the photographer are on different pages. Do you want relaxed, informal portraits where not everyone is looking at the camera and acting naturally? Or do you prefer formal, more posed group portraits? A combination of both? Your choice can determine the amount of time needed. Wedding party photos in the style of an Annie Leibovitz Vogue cover shoot take a bit of time to set up and should be planned in advance to ensure no compromises due to time constraints.

GET A POINT PERSON – ACTUALLY, GET TWO OF THEM

One for each “side” of the new family! This is your wedding day, and you should not be the one hunting down Great Aunt Betty because she’s MIA during family photo time. That’s someone else’s job. You need someone to help wrangle your family and any other guests for the portrait session. It’s your wedding day, and you don’t want to be responsible for tracking people down. Also, if you’re wearing a wedding dress, it will probably be difficult for you to run around herding guests. This tactic is crucial for stress free family photos.

PLANNING

Your family members may be involved in some aspects of planning the wedding, but they probably don’t have your wedding timeline memorized. Give them a specific time and place to show up—at least 5 minutes BEFORE family portraits are scheduled to begin. If either of your families is notorious for running late, I recommend scheduling all family photos immediately after the ceremony. You might ask your photo wrangler to follow up with a reminder text on the wedding day to ensure that no one forgets. Being punctual helps in achieving stress free family photos.

Tip: Sit down with your fiancé and make sure you’re on the same page. This is a conversation that some couples dismiss as irrelevant or common sense, but it’s important to have! Every family is different, but some of the groupings we see most often are:

• Bride & Groom with Bride’s extended family
• Bride & Groom with Bride’s immediate family
• Bride & Groom with Bride’s parents
• Bride & Groom with Groom’s extended family
• Bride & Groom with Groom’s immediate family
• Bride & Groom with Groom’s parents
• Bride & Groom with both sets of parents

Helpful Hint: Use full names in the list you create. Don’t just put something like “Bride and her cousins.” This will help you determine exactly how many people are in the photo and let your photographer know who they are. They will need names.

SHARE ANY SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER

Do Aunt Sue and Aunt Helen not talk to each other? Are there older family members who can’t stand for long periods or walk to a distant location on foot? Did you spend every summer with your Uncle Joe, and now a picture together is really important? As a photographer, I often get to know my clients well by their wedding day, so sometimes they forget that I don’t also know their families. This means I don’t know if Grandpa has trouble standing and will need a chair for portraits. I don’t know if there have been divorces, deaths, or conflicts that might make some family groupings or poses awkward. Your photographer will want to be sensitive and supportive in how they pose your family, but they need information to do so for stress free family photos.

The family portraits from your wedding day will be treasured not only by you but also by other family members. With some forethought and the implementation of the tips above, they can also be fun and stress-free family photos!

p.s. Check out more wedding planning tips below!

5 Reasons to Include a First Look in your Wedding Timeline

How to Prep Your Groom For a Photography Session

How to plan a Photography Based Wedding Day Timeline