What to Include on Your Family Shot List

and What to Avoid

By Jada Parrish

Posted: 02/24/16

Category: Wedding Tips

Family photos are one of the most important parts of your wedding day. These are the photos that you and your family members are going to treasure forever. It can also be one of the most stressful and chaotic parts of your wedding day if not handled properly. 

Here are a few of my best tips for who to include on your family photo shot list and how to make this part of your wedding day run as smoothly as possible!

Who to include: 

I always recommend keeping the formal family photos limited to immediate family and grandparents. It can be so tempting to want to include aunts, uncles, cousins, etc...but trust me on this one. Stick to immediate family and grandparents. Here's why:

• Trying to round up 30 + people after your ceremony can get crazy! People wander off and trying to track everyone down gets very stressful and wastes time.
• You and your groom will get photo-ed out. The two of you have a lot of photos to take after your ceremony (family photos, wedding party photos, and couples photos). Having an extremely long family photo shot list is going to wear you out. When it's time to take photos of just the two of you, chances are you may be tired of smiling at that point which, can lead to lack luster wedding portraits...nobody wants those!!
• It takes too long! The majority of you posed wedding photos are taken during cocktail hour. That means there is only one hour to take your family photos, wedding party photos, and couples photos. That's a lot to cram into an hour! Trying to include your entire extended family in your family photos just takes up way to much time. You definitely want to make sure you and your groom have plenty of photos of the two of you, after all it is your wedding!!

What to do:

Keep your posed family portraits after the ceremony limited to immediate family and grandparents. Be sure to create a family photo shot list ahead of time that lists each person's name that you'd like in each photo so your photographer can quickly pose everyone and move through the list. 

Ex: The Parrish Family - Jada, David, Nala, Kristin, Jesse

This will help make sure you receive all the family photos you want and that it will be completed in a timely manner.

What if I want large group photos taken?

If you have a couple large group photos you want taken with all of your cousins or your dad's whole side of the family or all of your college friends for example, jot those down on a separate list! Ask your photographer to talk to your band or DJ at the start of the reception and whenever they feel the time is appropriate have them announce "Can all of Jada's cousins head to the center of the dance floor for a quick photo?!"

That will allow your photographer quickly take all of the big group photos you'd like without taking up much of anyones time! It also allows other people at the reception to snap photos of that great group shot!

What is your recommended family photo shot list?

So here are a few groupings to help give you an idea of what shots to include. Every family is a little different, but hopefully this helps you get started!

Bride's Side:
  •    Bride + Mom
  •    Bride + Dad
  •    Bride + Bride's Siblings
  •    Bride + Bride's Parents
  •    Bride + Groom + Bride's Parents 
  •    Bride + Groom + Bride's Parents + Siblings
  •    Bride + Groom + Bride's Parents + Siblings + Grandparents
  •    Bride + Groom + Grandparents
  •    Bride + Grandparents
  •    Bride + Groom +  Bride's Siblings

Groom's Side:
  •    Groom + Mom
  •    Groom + Dad
  •    Groom + Groom's Siblings
  •    Groom + Groom's Parents
  •    Bride + Groom + Groom's Parents
  •    Bride + Groom + Groom's Parents + Siblings
  •    Bride + Groom + Groom's Parents + Siblings + Grandparents
  •    Bride + Groom + Grandparents
  •    Groom + Grandparents
  •    Bride + Groom +  Siblings

Combined:
  •    Bride + Groom + Both sets of parents
  •    Bride + Groom + All Siblings
  •    Bride + Groom + All Immediate Family

TIP | When you create your own family shot list make sure you do not write "mom or grandma, etc" your photographer might not know exactly who that is. Make sure to include each persons name instead!