5 Tips to Make Family Portraits a Breeze at Your Wedding

Family portraits at weddings are often expected to be a stressful experience — but they really don’t have to be!

I’ve put together these 5 simple tips to help keep family portraits as streamlined and low-stress as possible. Plus, these tips will help family photos go very quickly so you can move on and enjoy the rest of your wedding day!

1. Allow plenty of time.

If you think it will take 30 minutes, allow 45 minutes just to be safe!

This just provides some cushion so that if things do get slightly behind or if the photos start a little later than planned, it’s still okay! It’s so much better to have more time allotted and end early, than the other way around.

2. Make a detailed family photo list.

List out all of the family members’ names and the group shots that you want. Be detailed!

Having a concise, organized list to work from helps the process go quickly and smoothly, minimizes stress, and helps avoid anything getting missed.

To make this super easy for my clients, I provide an online form close to the wedding where they can input all of their family members’ names and any other details they want me to know.

3. Designate someone to help.

This could be your wedding planner, a bridesmaid, a sibling, good friend, etc. It’s helpful if it’s someone who is familiar with some of your family members already, or at least meets some of them during the wedding weekend.

This person’s job will be to gather family members and call out their names (from the very organized list) while your photographer is capturing some great portraits.

Having this designated person helps to make the family photo process go quickly and smoothly, and helps nothing to get missed!

4. Over-communicate location & time.

Tell everyone when and where everyone needs to be for photos, multiple times and in multiple ways. If you think you’ve said it too many times, it’s probably just the right amount!

Send an email to your family before the wedding, tell everyone at the rehearsal the day before, and if the photos are after the ceremony, have your officiant give instructions at the end of the ceremony.

5. Let go of expectations.

Let go of any expectations of perfection! These photos are very important, but perfection is not the standard.

There is a good chance there will be a screaming baby, a cranky toddler, or a family member who wandered off to the cocktail hour early. That’s just a part of it how weddings go, and it’s okay!

No matter what, I will still get all the photos we need, capturing images of you with your loved ones that you are going to cherish for many years to come.

If any of this resonated with you and you’d like to hear more about my approach, I’d love to hear from you!