Josh Bowie Wedding Photography - When To Shoot Family Photos?

  • 9 years ago
Q & A Wedding Photographer
When to Shoot Family Photos?
As couples are sorting out their timeline of events at the wedding they are often wondering when’s the best time to do family photos and I can hear a sense of dread in their voice of doing the family photos and just wondering what’s the smoothest way to just make it as easy as possible.
So the best time generally to do the family photos is right after the ceremony; everyone is there together, saying congratulations and mingling and it’s a great time to just pull aside the family and do the family photos.
My biggest piece of advice is to create a list ahead of time of all the different family photos that you want, the combinations with mom’s and dad’s and you know, brothers and sisters and auntie and their partners or whatever different combinations of photos you would like to have. Create a list beforehand so you’re not scrambling in the moment and accidentally you forget to get a picture of your grandma or something, someone who’s important to you. So create a list ahead of time and perhaps you can have someone like a brother or sister who’s there with that list who can call the next people whose next in line and it can be a very fast assembly line of family photos.
I like to keep them quite casual and quite relaxed and I think those are the best pictures any ways and by having a list and someone who can help call the next people in line, you can rattle through the family photos in 20 minutes and have great photos regardless of how long your list is, it can be quite quick.
So that’s my advice for family photos is to do it after the ceremony, generally that’s the time that it works well, to create a list of the different combinations you want and to have someone helping to check off the list and call the next family members in line.

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