A lot of photographers loathe shooting family formals… they can be tedious, scattered and a time suck. I am not one of those people. Why? Because a lot of times, these are the images your mom and grandma want hanging on their walls!! Since the inception of our business, we have desperately tried to make this time of the wedding as painless as possible. Let’s face it, there are cocktails, tiny egg rolls, and giant shrimp waiting! The faster this process goes, the faster the party gets started! Here are a few ways we help this process go smooth…. We ask for your list well ahead of time! About six weeks before your wedding we send a thorough questionnaire which includes a spot for you to list your family formal combinations. We ask that you really think about this! Don’t waste precious time getting every possible combination if you’re not really going to do anything with those images. We rearrange your list. When you make your list, you’re just jotting down those combinations willy-nilly. We take the list, study it and then rearrange it so that we start with the largest group. This is normally your aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Typically, the people in your extended family are only in this one shot. They get in and out fast and on to your party. It also eliminates the amount of people standing around us, making it difficult to hear. From there, we will shoot smaller combinations on both the bride and grooms sides. Once we make the order of shots we are taking, we make four copies of the list. I have a list, my second shooter has a list, someone on the brides side and grooms side each have a list. Those last 2 are key! We don’t know who uncle Steve is, but they do! They can help us round up wondering nephews quickly. We will always ask to shoot them outdoors. Even though we are prepared to shoot in dark churches, if we don’t have to, we will not want to. I loved shooting Carrie & Brendan’s family formals on the church steps. It gives a really traditional feel, but offers much prettier natural light. Don’t be intimidated or dread this part of the day, we’ll make it as painless as possible!
