Group shots can be fun, but getting all your family and friends into one spot for a photo when all they want to do is eat, drink and have fun is more challenging than it sounds. I always do my best to make group shots a fun and stress free part of the day, but there are a few things that we can do to make sure this part of the day runs as quickly and smoothy as possible so we can get the group photos over with and everyone is free to get back to what ever mischiefs they were up to before!

 Less is more.

This is just advice, you don’t have to take it but from what I’ve seen over the past few years of weddings 6 -8 group shots is a perfect number. Bigger groups take longer to organise, sometimes up to 10 minutes to capture everyone, get them standing in the right place and looking in the right direction. So this is something to think about when planning the timeline of your day. Smaller groupings are quick and easy to do (as long as no one has nipped the loo).

Little Helpers.

If you have any confident and reliable members of friends and family that have a good idea who everyone is and don’t mind getting stuck in, these people can be great at helping me to get everyone together for group photographs. Teachers seem to be pretty amazing at it, or if you have a slightly scary loud aunt or uncle. Get them involved. We’ll have your wedding guests doing impressions of Diversity in no time … We won’t but it will be much quicker! And the quicker we get the group shots done the more you have to spend time with your friends and family, eat canapés, drink fizz and relaxing, while I sneak around getting some lovely photos of everyone doing just that! 

What do group shots look like?

Well they look a little bit like this. I’ll always take the safe everyone looking at the camera shot first, but if we have time (keeping within 6-8 group shots we usually so) we can have a little mess around and get everyone moving about a bit, sometimes it looks messy, sometime people turn away from the camera and start having a chat, but there are usually plenty of real laughs and smiles which always makes it worth that extra minute or so of getting everyone to have a little wiggle about in front of the camera.

Indoor or Outdoor Group Shots? 

If the weather is good outside and you have the choice of doing your wedding photographs either indoors or outdoors, I'd always advise the outdoor option. |t's quicker, easier, there's better light, more space and generally it's a lot prettier! Sometimes if a wedding venue has anything better than a borderline average staircase they might tell you that sometimes people have photos on the staircase and it's really nice. It might just be too, but setting up lighting for these shots takes extra time away from the day when I could be sneaking around, grabbing all those natural candids of your family and mates goofing around together, so my advice would be save to really think about whether the indoor photo the venue has suggested is going to be worth the extra time it takes to set up and maybe save the staircase photos or indoor groups for rainy days if you can. If you are ever unsure or need advice on anything like this, just ask, that's what I'm here for! :)