Tips for Family Formals

Family formals are so incredibly important on a wedding day. The short window of time when capturing family formals can really create a few different moods for your guests. One of excited for you and smiles ready to go party or ones that are tired and waiting around for far too long.

(Complete side note: Grandmas are my favorite. They make my heart smile.)

We have some tips to help you make your family formals experience full of smiles, joy, and as stress free as can be.

  1. Make sure that everyone in the photos knows ahead of time that they are in the photos.
  2. Have a designated family member (preferably one for the brides’s family and one for the groom’s) to help gather anyone who may have gotten pulled away or forgot about photos.
  3. Give your photographer a list before the wedding day with all of the various combinations.
  4. Start with larger groups and get smaller. If there are young children or older grandparents make them first priority too. Share these details with us and we can make sure to write out the list this way too.
  5. If you have multiple REALLY LARGE groupings consider doing these at the reception where the DJ can announce a group photo. We can talk about this to see what makes the most sense for your day.
  6. If there are any divorce situations in your family let us know ahead of time. Consider if you want images with both parents or keeping them separate. Only you know how your parents may feel about this so discuss it with them and list it accordingly. (More on this in a future post.)
  7. We will send over a full list of our standard family formals to help you create your list!

Just so that you know our process, Robert takes the photos while I help pose everyone. We take one person or grouping out at a time so that we can work efficiently with our time. You can typically expect the standard immediate family plus grandparents to take about 15 minutes but we always suggest scheduling a full 30 minutes just to be safe.

Check back for part two if you have any divorced parents and are navigating how to write out your family formal list.

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Tips for Family Formals Part 1 | Tips for Brides

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