How to Organize Your Family Photos

Your wedding day will go by SO quickly, you’ll hardly believe it. It seems like you blink, and it’s over. Part of the reason for that is becuase there are so many moving pieces and things to give your attention to all day.

One of the things we always try to encourage our couples to do is to spend quality time mingling with guests, but that can be hard to carve out with so many other demands on your time. It can be tough to join the cocktail hour when so often you’re spending that time capturing what seems like a million photos between the ceremony and dinner.

We usually encourage our couples to capture extended family photos (which you’ll definitely want to devote some time to - it’s important to get photos with all of your loved ones…frankly, your grandparents won’t be around for ever) directly after the ceremony, when all of them are corralled in one place. However, this can be time-consuming, particularly if it’s not well-organized, and Uncle Frank takes off for the bar while your cousins are running around like maniacs.

Family photo grouping - Woodgate Photography

Here are our top tips for organizing this part of the day. With a bit of pre-planning, you can streamline the extended family photos so that you capture those important memories quickly, then join the party!

1. Make a list of photo groupings. This will ensure that you don’t miss anyone. Do this well in advance, and share it with your photographer and your wedding planner.

• start with the biggest group first, then work down to the smallest group. (With the caveat that you’ll likely want to do photos of older and very young guests first).

• try to do all the photos with the same group of people, then dismiss that group entirely:

  • B&G, grandma & grandpa, mom & dad, aunt Susan, uncle Bob, cousins Joey, Susie and Ralph

  • B&G, grandma & grandpa, mom & dad, aunt Susan, uncle Bob

  • B&G, grandma & grandpa, mom & dad

  • B&G, mom & dad

2. Make some phone calls or send some emails the week before the wedding to notify anyone on your extended photo list that you need them to stick around after the ceremony for a few minutes. Be explicit with who you’d like to be in the photos so there’s no question in your second-cousin-once-removed’s mind that he needs to stay close.

3. Ask your officiant to remind guests at the end of the ceremony (usually there are some guest directions given just prior to the pronouncement that you’re married) that extended family are to gather for photos. Bonus if the officiant can give a specific location, like “please gather at the gazebo”, or “proceed to the oak tree for photos”.

4. Task a cousin or aunt from each side of the family with the job of ‘wrangling’ each photo grouping. Share the list prior to the wedding, and ask them to line up each grouping and have them on deck while the previous group is having their photo done. Have them cross off each group to make sure nobody is overlooked.

5. Each grouping takes about 3 minutes.

With a little bit of pre-planning, this part of the day can be streamlined, allowing you to capture important family memories, and then move on to either formal photos with your wedding party, or to get the party started!