5 Tips to Help Organize Your Family Formals On Your Wedding Day
Uncategorized

5 Tips to Help Organize Your Family Formals On Your Wedding Day

Family formals, while not the most creative portion of photographing weddings, is still an important part of your coverage. These photos document what your family looked like at that particular time and serves to capture part of your family’s history.

Having said that, photographing family formals at weddings can sometimes get chaotic. Imagine this scenario. After the ceremony, your sister gets tied up talking with Aunt Sally who is known for her gift of gab, your new brother-in-law is at the bar getting a drink with Uncle Dan who couldn’t help but show the photos he took on his iPad, and grandma is left still sitting at the ceremony area because no one had told her where to go for photos.

Given that most weddings have limited time for portraits, not having a game plan for organizing your formals takes away the experience of enjoying your wedding from you and your family. Nobody wants to get stuck waiting for their turn when all the other guests are getting the party started. Plus the more time we spend on wrangling people for formals, the less time you’ll have for the couple’s portraits. Unless you’ve done a First Look beforehand. Or if you deem that portraits for the bride and groom and wedding party is not that important.

5 Tips to Help Organize Your Family Formals On Your Wedding Day

Here are a few helpful tips to help organize your family formals on your wedding day:

1. Keep in mind that it takes 3-5 minutes to take a photo of one grouping.

If you think you can squeeze in 30 photo groupings of everyone of your extended family in 20 minutes, think again. You won’t. I personally don’t mind shooting that many sets as long as you’re aware of how much time you’ll need. However,

2. It’s best to keep the family formals sets for immediate families only.

The longer the list, the more time you’ll need. The more time people have to wait for their turn, the more distracted they’ll become. Hence, harder to organize.

3. Assign a wrangler for each sides of the family.

Choose wranglers who know everyone on your list and who’ll be able to coral them in place. Someone with a commanding, loud voice would be ideal. Give them the list of your preferred groupings and it’ll be their responsibility to gather each side of the family.

4. Make the people included in your list aware of the time and place for the formals.

Just so there’s no confusion on where and when to go right after. If you have grandparents who needs help with remembering things, team them up with another family member who will.

5. Keep the location within walking distance from the ceremony area if possible.

It’ll be a lot easier for your family if they don’t have to travel far. You’ll run the risk of traffic delays or people getting lost on the way if they are required to travel by car to another location. If you choose to have your family formals done during the cocktail hours at the reception venue, it might get harder to organize people while they’re socializing with family and friends. I’ve found that doing the formals right after the ceremony has been the best way.

Hope these tips help! Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Share Button