Lara Swanson Blog

Creating a timeline for your wedding can be a tricky thing: rarely are people already familiar with how a wedding day is typically laid out (unless they’ve been married before or have been in multiple bridal parties). I often get questions about the timeline for photos - when do we take the couple portraits? When do we do the bridal party shots, and how about the family? How does “getting ready” work, and when does that begin? How much time should be allocated between the ceremony and reception for formal photos?

To put it simply - it’s all pretty flexible. Each couple is unique, and you will have your own ideas for which photos mean the most to you and which you’d like to devote the most time to.

Getting Ready Photos

For couples who are interested in “getting ready” or “preparation” photos, I recommend the photographer arriving about an hour before the ceremony. This gives us a chance to catch a lot of the details (makeup, shoes, ties, dress) before much is assembled, and also gives us an opportunity to catch a lot of the action (putting on the dress, pinning boutonnières, stuffing tissues in bouquets). If you are planning on taking longer to get ready, or putting on your dress earlier, then you may want your photographer to arrive earlier.

Formal photos before the ceremony

Taking formal portraits (your family, your bridal party, and the two of you) before the ceremony is something that works for some couples. These couples typically meet some of the following:

• They don’t mind seeing each other before the wedding (and sometimes still have a “first sighting” to document that special moment)
• Their ceremony starts later in the day, and formal photos afterwards will be tough for natural light
• They know that their families will all be in the same place before the ceremony (instead of trying to find them all afterwards) - this often happens with a Ketubah signing
• They want to get some of the group shots out of the way beforehand so they can spend less time between the ceremony and reception taking photos. For example, some couples will do all the bridal party shots before the ceremony when their flowers will be at their freshest, or all the family shots so the family can go straight to the reception after the ceremony. Either will cut down on time later.

Order of formal photos

How do formal photos go down? I like to do family first, then bridal party photos, then photos of just the couple. This way, after your family is all done they can head right to the reception and start partying. The same with the bridal party, but they’ve been hired to be patient so they can go second! Then when they’ve been sent off, it’s just me and the two of you - nobody to look on and giggle while you exemplify how happy you are to get hitched. (Plus - nobody to feel self-conscious in front of if you don’t like getting your picture taken!)

How long do the portraits take?

If you have a large family and want lots of different group shots, you will definitely need to allocate at least 45 minutes for photos. I’m known as the fastest photographer on the mid-east coast (just kidding) and work very quickly with group shots (especially with my steadfast assistant by my side, corralling guests), but there is not much we can do if family shows up late or doesn’t know where they’re supposed to be. That’s when teamwork comes in handy! If you can put somebody in charge of finding people who need to be there and pulling people when we shout their names off the shotlist, that will greatly expedite the process. Typically this person is somebody that knows a lot of the family already.

If you’re worried about time, one of the easiest things to do is cut down on the number of photos where only you OR your partner are in them. Is it really necessary to do one of you, your brother, your dog, and Aunt Mary and then another of you, your partner, your brother, your dog, and Aunt Mary? Probably not. Consider only including photos on the list that you both are in - after all, the day is about celebrating your union!

As you prepare, make sure that your family knows where to be and when. This is the single most helpful thing to get formals over and done with!

Individuals with special needs

There is a place on the shotlist questionnaire I send you 45 days before the wedding that asks if there are any individuals involved in the formal photos that have special needs - an elderly person who can’t stand for a long period of time, anybody who has trouble with lots of stairs, etc. It is imperative that I be aware of this ahead of time - these things will dictate the location of the photos and the order of them. I will get the photos with this individual all done at the same time so they don’t have to walk back and forth from the group, and I will give location suggestions that are accessible.

In a similar vein, if there are individuals who should NOT be in the same shot, please PLEASE let me know. If there are individuals who you would like to have in the same shot but not standing next to one another, please let me know this as well. We can be totally flexible with each of these scenarios, but you do need to let me know ahead of time so we can plan!

Things change!

No matter how much we prepare, thing will change on the day of. The most important thing? Don’t stress. It always happens - someone forgets where they’re supposed to be, or the flower girl is in tears, or things run late and you want to slash half the list. That’s why you hire professionals - we know how to handle these situations! If I were to figure out what my defining moment as a professional photographer is, it would definitely include a tricky formal portrait situation. I’ve had terrible lighting, hotel gift shops next to the only good place to take portraits, massive fights between the bride and her mother moments before, florals arriving late (and wrong), bridal parties getting lost and stuck in traffic, unexpected and inconceivable amounts of precipitation, the list goes on. Don’t worry - we will get the shots, and figure it out together.