Wedding family photos: a shot list that runs on time

This is part three of The wedding photo plan. Last week's part built the day's timeline around the photos and left a block for family photos. This week fills that block.

Family and group photos are the part of the day most couples dread and most guests remember as standing around. They are also the photos parents frame and grandchildren look at in fifty years. With a written list, a person to run it and a little warning to the family, they take half an hour instead of an afternoon.

Keep the list short

Every grouping takes time. Two to three minutes each is a fair planning figure once people are there; much longer if someone has to be found. Ten to fifteen groupings is a comfortable number for most weddings, which fits in thirty to forty minutes.

Your photographer will also be photographing the reception, so the people who are not on the list still end up in pictures. The list is for the combinations that will not happen by themselves: you with your grandmother, both families together, your mother with her sisters.

Ask one question of each proposed group: will anyone want this printed? If the honest answer is no, drop it.

Order the list to release people

The order matters more than anything else. The goal is to let people go as soon as their last photo is done.

1. Start with the largest group. Everyone from both families together, while everyone is still there. Then take people out rather than calling them in.
2. Grandparents and older relatives early. They are the ones who find standing hardest, and often the ones you most want. Once their photos are done, they can sit down with a drink.
3. Children early too. A four-year-old page boy has a limited supply of patience.
4. Work from one side of the family to the other. Do all of one side, then all of the other, rather than switching back and forth.
5. Within each side, immediate family last. Parents and siblings are the people who will stay anyway, so aunts, uncles and cousins go before them.

Appoint a family wrangler

Your photographer does not know who Uncle Lars is. Choose someone who does: a cousin, a friend who knows both families, a sibling who is good at being politely firm. This person is the family wrangler. They hold the list, call out the next group, and go and find whoever has wandered off to the bar.

It works best when the family wrangler is not in many of the photos themselves, and when they have the list a few days ahead. If each side of the family is large, pick one family wrangler per side.

Complicated families, handled kindly

Divorced parents, step-parents, estrangements and bereavements are common, and nothing about them needs to be awkward on the day if they are planned for.

• Divorced parents who get on. Keep them in one group if they are comfortable, and add separate photos with each parent and their partner.
• Divorced parents who do not. Photograph each parent separately, with their current partner if they have one, and never put the two of them next to each other on the list. Space the groupings apart, so one parent is not waiting in view of the other.
• Step-parents and step-siblings. Include them where they are family to you. If a parent would be hurt to see a step-parent in "their" photo, add one version with and one without, and say nothing more about it.
• Someone who has died. Some couples bring a framed photo, a flower or a chair into one family picture. Tell the photographer in advance so it is done quietly.

Tell your photographer about sensitive situations in the practical notes of your photo brief, before the day rather than on it. Photographers handle this often; they just need to know. If you wrote a brief in part one, this is where those notes pay off.

Where to take them

Choose a spot close to where the ceremony ends, with room for the largest group and even light. Open shade (the shadow side of a building or under a large tree) is easier than full sun, where people squint and faces get hard shadows. Check it at the same time of day if you can.

Have a plan for rain. An entrance hall, a covered porch or a large room with windows works. Your photographer will have a view on this; ask them to visit or look at photos of the venue.

Tell the families in advance

People are much quicker when they know they are needed. A week or two before the wedding, send a short message to everyone on the list:

We're taking family photos straight after the ceremony, just outside the church. You're in a few of them, so please stay close for the first half hour before heading to the drinks. [Name] will be helping the photographer and will come and find you. Thank you!

Mention it again the evening before, especially to the people who always wander off.

A template family photo list

Copy this, change the names and cut the groupings that are not for you. Numbering them helps the family wrangler call them out. P1 and P2 are you and your partner.

FAMILY PHOTO LIST – after the ceremony, by the church steps
Family wrangler: Johanna (P1's cousin), phone 07x xxx xx xx

 1. Both families, everyone
 2. P1 + P2 with all grandparents
 3. P1 + P2 with P1's grandparents
 4. P1 + P2 with P2's grandparents
 5. P1 + P2 with the children in the wedding party
 6. P1 + P2 with P1's extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins)
 7. P1 + P2 with P1's parents and siblings (with partners and children)
 8. P1 + P2 with P1's parents
 9. P1 with each parent separately
10. P1 + P2 with P2's extended family
11. P1 + P2 with P2's parents and siblings (with partners and children)
12. P1 + P2 with P2's parents
13. P2 with each parent separately
14. P1 + P2 with the wedding party
15. Anything left over: godparents, a best friend's family

Notes for the photographer:
- P2's parents are divorced: do 11 and 12 once with each parent,
  not together.
- Grandfather Erik uses a stick; bring a chair for him in 2 and 4.

Print two copies: one for the photographer and one for the family wrangler.

What the list will not cover

Group photos are posed by design. The warmer pictures of your families (your aunts laughing at a speech, your nephew asleep on two chairs at eleven at night) come from the rest of the day, and many of them will be taken by your guests. Our post on the photos your photographer will not take covers why those pictures matter and how to make sure you get them.

Before next week

Draft your list, send it to your photographer for comments, and ask your family wrangler this week, not the week before the wedding. Next week, part four moves to after the day: gathering everyone's photos and videos, waiting for the professional gallery and backing it all up.