Some brides and grooms want to make sure that they get plenty of pictures of them and the people they care about most and some just want to get group portraits out of the way so they can get to the party. It is completely up to you! When considering group portraits please take the following into account: what groups of people you want pictures of, when and how much time you will allot for them and what is their importance to you.

Wedding Party

Who is going to be in your group pictures? Some brides and grooms do not really consider this while planning. Just like every wedding, your family and friends are unique. As a wedding photographer, I have a standard set of group portraits that I offer for my brides and grooms to modify to their liking. Some brides and grooms want a picture with each of their attendants separately and some just want the basic that I have listed below.

Family Wedding Portrait List 
Couple & Both Families
Couple & Groom’s Family
Couple & Bride’s Family
Couple & Both Parents

Wedding Party Portrait List
Entire Wedding Party
Couple, Maid of Honor & Best Man
Bride & Maid of Honor
Bride & Bridal Party
Groom & Groomsmen
Groom & Best Man

Other Popular Group Wedding Portraits
Bride or Groom with Siblings
Bride with Groomsmen
Groom with Bridal Party
Bride and Groom with FlowerGirl and Ring-bearer

Especially with some of the families that may have some step mothers or fathers, it is good to think out the group pictures ahead of time. Also, let everyone know that these are the group wedding pictures and they will have to be there for them. Telling everyone in advance usually helps to alleviate that missing person that decided to wonder off to the bar that you have to have in your pictures. This isn’t how you want to spend 15 minutes of your wedding.

Bridal Party Portrait

How much time do you want to spend on your wedding group pictures and when and where should you do it? If you are being traditional and you do not want to see each other before the wedding, you really have one option. Do wedding portraits after the ceremony. That doesn’t mean all of them. You might be able to get a few of them out of the way before the ceremony. Consult your photographer but I sometimes suggest doing the portraits that the bride and groom are not in together ahead of the ceremony. This depend on your location and your timing. It can help to cut a little time off of the wedding portraits after the ceremony.

I do have to say that I love non-traditional brides and grooms that want to get the pictures done ahead of time. This also allows us to do first glance pictures. First glance pictures are when the groom has his back to the bride while the bride is walking up and they get to see each other for the first time on their wedding day. It can be very touching and sweet. Also a little bit of an emotional release for the bride and groom. When doing the portraits ahead of time, you are able to make sure that all of your wedding party and immediate family is not going to be late for your big event. This is not usually a problem but you never know about traffic. It is also beneficial because after the ceremony you can go straight to your reception and your guests do not have to wait for you to show up.

Which ever way you want to go, make sure you talk with your wedding photographer and come up with a realistic schedule for all of the pictures that you want.

Traditional Group Wedding Party Portrait

What is the importance of group pictures in consideration to your wedding pictures? This is a question that you have to answer. Do you want tons of those posed pictures or just one good one? Do you want more candid pictures or posed pictures? The trend in the wedding industry lately is to have a few great posed pictures but focus more of candids and the actual wedding. I see it both ways still. For you planning, I personally take about 45 minutes to do a standard set of group pictures after a ceremony. In my next post, I am going to speak more about timing and wedding day schedule. So stay tuned and happy planning!

Kids Happy Wedding Portrait

I saw that a bride was looking to plan a beach wedding here in Charleston. It sounds like an easy task but can be difficult to research something like that. Having done more than a few beach weddings, I decided I would write to her in hopes that it would help narrow her search. Below is the email. Maybe it will help you too!

Wild Dunes Beach Wedding

EMAIL

Congratulations on your engagement! November is a beautiful time of the year here in Charleston to get married. I do currently have your wedding date available. Sounds like you have a lot of planning to do still. Feel free to check out my wedding picture gallery and look at some of the different locations. You can contact me directly through the site and I can let you know where the locations are for some of the pictures.

Wedding Gallery: http://www.glenna.co/gallery.html

For a 100 person beach wedding you have a few great choices around charleston. On Isle of Palms, Wild Dunes has locations on and near the beach and there is also the Citadel Beach House.

On Sullivan’s island there are a few locations but you can also contact the city and request to just have it on the beach. My favorite Station on Sullivan’s Island is #18. It is near the light house and has a nice boardwalk down to the beach. This would just be for the ceremony though. Here is their info on it: http://www.sullivansisland-sc.com/Files/General%20documents/TOSI%20Beach%20Wedding%20Information%20Sheet%20(3-15-10).pdf

I know that you wouldn’t think of it but Mount Pleasant has a little beach. It is actually the Charleston Harbor Resort. They have a man made beach and a nice pier and it all overlooks the Charleston Harbor.

Folly Beach is the other close to Charleston Beach. At the Holiday Inn on Folly right next to the pier, they do a great job with weddings. The restaurant is called Blu and they have just recently redone the entire hotel so it is very clean and updated.

Hope this helps you narrow down your wedding location. Happy planning!

Sullivan's Island Beach Wedding