How to Prepare for Wedding Photos with a Big Family

You’ve got a lot to think about when it comes to planning your wedding. One of the most important parts of your big day is your wedding pictures. Getting the perfect photos can be a bit of a tedious process, but it doesn’t have to take hours if you keep some simple tips in mind. Here are some suggestions for taking beautiful, candid, and memorable photos with your big family at your wedding.

Decide When You’ll Take Your Photos

Before the day of your wedding, you and your spouse should decide whether you want to take photos before or after the ceremony. Be sure to send your wedding photographer a list of all the photos poses you’d like and who you want to include in each photo. If you can, include a few group photographs of your relatives and label the photos so your photographer will know who to look for at the ceremony. You should also let your photographer know if you want to take your photos at your wedding site or another location that has sentimental value for your spouse and/or family. For instance, if you want to take wedding pictures in or near downtown Austin because that’s where you and your fiance met, you can hire Austin wedding photographers to capture you and your sweetheart in a way that showcases your personalities.

Get Your Family Members to Focus

It’s also best if you ask your wedding guests to put down their phones while the photographer is taking photos. If you’re posing with a group of loved ones, the family members outside of the picture will likely try to take pictures with their phones. This means that the people in the photo will be looking in a variety of directions and the professional photographer will have a hard time getting a nice shot. Of course, your family members can take candid photos throughout the ceremony and reception but should put their devices down while the hired photographer is working.

Select the Ideal Family Photo Groupings

To further prepare for an efficient and memorable family wedding photo section, you may want to come up with some traditional and unconventional groupings to make sure your wedding photos are a success.
When it comes to traditional groupings, allow enough time for you and your spouse to take as many pictures together as you’d like. Then, you can arrange for you and your mate to take pictures with your mothers and fathers. If you have siblings, ask the photographer to take a few pictures of you and your new spouse with both of your immediate families. If your brothers and sisters are married, take a few pictures with your mate, your siblings, and their spouses as well.

Photo Groupings for You and Your Spouse

Next, you can take a picture with your parents or stepparents and request that your parents take a photo by themselves as well. If your parents are divorced, you can ask the photographer to take separate pictures of you with each parent. Ask the photographer to get a picture with you and your grandparents along with a separate photo of your grandparents. Your spouse can take these same photos as well. Of course, you and your mate can customize the groupings based on the close relatives who will attend your wedding and your overall family dynamic. Remember that if your parent, grandparent, and/or great grandparent is attending the wedding, ask the photographer to take a “generation photo” as another way to remember your special day.

Wedding Party Photos

Once you’ve taken all the pictures you want of your family members, it’s time to get your wedding party together for photos. If you’re the bride, you can take a picture with your bridesmaids in a candid pose. For instance, the bridesmaids can gather around you and blow kisses your way. Or, you can ask the photographer to take a picture of you and your bridal party throwing your bouquets or jumping in the air at the same time. If you’d like, ask the photographer to take a photo of you with your maid or matron of honor as well. You may also want to take a picture with the groomsmen and a separate photo with the flower girls and ring bearer. Or, you can have the flower girls pose in a photo with the bridesmaids and bring the ring bearer in the picture of the groomsmen.
The groom can take a picture with the groomsmen and a separate photo with the best man. Request that the photographer take pictures of the groom with the bridal party, flower girls, and ring bearer as well.

Additional Photos with Friends and Family

If your childhood friends, older relatives, or college roommates attended your wedding, be sure to get photos with them as well. These pictures can be as fun or conservative as you’d like. Let your photographer know whether you’d like to take these photos at the ceremony or reception so you can keep the day as organized as possible and let your loved ones know when to prepare for their photos with you. If you or your spouse have a cherished pet that will attend the wedding, request that your photographer take some photos of the pet wearing ribbons or bows in the wedding colors. Of course, you can get in a few of these pictures as well.
These are just some of the ways you can get the wedding photos you want even if you have a large family or wedding party. The more pictures you have to remind you of the special moments at your wedding, the more likely you are to look at your pictures fondly for years to come.