Every wedding tells the story of a couple in love, but they aren’t only people involved in their special day. There’s the friends and family who comprise the bridal party and the loving family that supports the newlyweds through the rest of their years together. These people are important to our brides and grooms and that makes them important to us as well. However, we know that sometimes, when there’s lots of people to corral and only two or three photographers, it can feel like herding cats. Today, we have a few tips for how to manage large families and bridal parties to make sure that all these people that mean so much to the happy couple get their moment on center stage.
- Ask your bride and groom how many people they expect for their bridal party and family photos, and see if they can ask a non bridal party, non parent family member to help them wrangle everybody. For bridal parties, put your maid of honor and best man in charge of moving the bridal party along.
Brides and grooms are looking to you as their experienced photographer to make suggestions to help them move their day along and this one can really help with that. Having someone who knows all the faces to the names can expedite the process of family formals in particular. They know what Uncle Bob looks like and can run outside for two minutes to find him and bring him inside. In your consultation and final planning with your couples, consider asking them to designate this person. It is a real time and headache saver!
Brides and grooms, your maid of honor and your best man are supposed to be your right hand during your wedding, and this includes keeping the rest of the bridal party in check. Have a short discussion with your MOH or BM and let them know that this is something you want and let them take care of it!
- When grouping extended family into pictures, ask how many are in their family and place them as a unit into the photograph.
This is extremely helpful with large extended family pictures of over 25 people. Instead of trying to place individuals and mixing people up, place families as whole units. It can help balance the photo more easily, and it saves you the potential embarrassment of pairing up people who may not get along or splitting up married couples.
- For bridal parties, be polite but firm.
Don’t be afraid to raise your voice. When there’s a bridal party of more than 14, it can get loud. You need to be heard as you give your instructions. By and large, they don’t mean to be uncooperative, they’re just excited to be celebrating their friends wedding and having a good time. They don’t want to spend anymore time than they have to getting their picture taken, so be firm. It moves the process along and gets everyone to the party faster.
- Have fun with it!
Allowing a bridal party to let their hair down and do something silly and fun can be perfect for keeping everyone’s attention and getting a great memorable picture!
Was this helpful? Leave us a comment below and let us know if you have any tricks up your sleeve for managing large families and bridal parties!
