The Top Secret to Streamline Your Family Photos
You have a big family and a lot of people to photograph together but don’t stress!
Weddings are such an amazing experience because it's not only about celebrating your marriage, but also about seeing so many of your own family and friends together at once, and sometimes for the first time in a long time! It’s easy to feel overwhelmed— we know you have about 100 different things on your plate as is— so our top tip for making sure you don’t miss any formal photos with anyone + not having to actually wrack your brain about it on the day of your wedding is to create a shot list!
WHAT'S A SHOT LIST?
A shot list is exactly what it sounds like: a list of people who you must be shot (photographed) with. On this list is every iteration of people that you want photos with, for example: Shelly/Dave + Shelly’s parents, Charlie/Alex + Alex’s siblings, Laura/Lori + Aunt May and kids, Pete/Ray + all of Ray’s cousins, etc. Any and every grouping of people you can think of— big groups, small groups, sub groups of big groups, this is your chance to sort all of these logistics out!
If you’re having a large wedding and want to get photos with the majority of your guests we suggest breaking your list into 2 parts:
Part 1: Formal photos
These groups are generally reserved for your immediate families, bridal parties, and other key people in your lives (godparents, childhood best friends, etc.). Anyone who before or after your ceremony will be coming to a separate location to take these photos with us.
Part 2: casual / less formal photos
These are typically work friends, your Friday night drinking crew, extended family who your parents made you invite (lol), your college girl gang, etc. People on this list can be photographed on the spot at cocktail hour or throughout dinner, even in between songs on the dancefloor. Think of this group as the “photos with these people would be great, but it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen” kind of group because you’re probably getting some informal phone snaps with them anyways.
HOW DOES THIS HELP?
You’re going to have so much happening on your wedding day even at the best of times it’ll be easy to forget someone or miss a specific group, so it’s in everyone’s best interest for you to take some time to write this out ahead of time. This includes creating specific groups that are sensitive to certain family dynamics— like who needs to be standing at opposite ends of a group, or perhaps this family photo can be split into two instead of one big one because of tension.
Once we have this list we will keep it on hand (typically on our phones, sometimes printed out) and will simply roll call everyone when the time comes. This allows us to work like a well oiled photo taking machine, instead of herding cats, so this part of your day doesn’t take up too much of your time (warning: your face will likely be sore by the end of it haha).
HERE'S AN EXAMPLE
Carina & Matt only had their ceremony venue for a certain amount of time before they had to clear out and everyone had to move to their reception space. They really wanted to take their photos at Hart House and they really wanted to get photos with all of their guests, but we were going to be pressed for time with such a large list. Carina made the most organized shot list we have ever seen, and along with a microphone we were able to knock all of these groupings out before leaving at our scheduled time!
**Don’t feel intimidated by this list, and don’t feel like you need to have a similar amount of groupings for your wedding regardless of your headcount! Some folks shot list are immediate families only, some are just 5 groupings in total. Every wedding is different, so do what feels right to you and your day!
