The importance of family group photo ushers and lists

Unlike some wedding photographers, I actually love shooting family group photos at weddings. It’s a great opportunity to show the couple and guests just how organized, professional and efficient you can be (or in some cases not!).

It’s a period of the day when everything should come together in a perfect symbiotic harmony, your pre-wedding planning, camera technical skills, scene selection/scoping efforts and people and posing talent. The objective is to shoot family photos as painlessly as possible, and ensure they are all completed on time or early. Rarely does it go exactly to plan.

First things first, the best possible advice I can offer is to insist during the pre-wedding consultation that the couple will be providing TWO persons to help with ushering guests, and crossing off each family group photo on a printed list.

This cannot be emphasized enough. The only exception to this is micro weddings where there are only a handful of guests (for example the couple and their witnesses). In this scenario, it is perfectly fine for the couple to ‘wing it’ so to speak with their photo list, as there are (mathematically) only so many combinations that are possible!

Often these ushers can be one person on either side of each family. That makes sense, because then you have two people that presumably know who everyone is. Mums, Aunties, Uncles etc make the best ushers, and especially if they have come from a profession that includes some sort of assertiveness training! Just about every family I have encountered seems to have a school teacher, military officer etc.

For typical weddings, where you might expect between 20 and 200 guests, having a printed and prioritised list of family group photos is so important that it should be enshrined in your client agreement. It should also be followed up close to the wedding date, ideally through the use of automated emails.

Now you might think that a list of photos on a mobile phone Google Doc would suffice. Trust me on this one, that might work for most weddings, but it won’t work for every wedding situation. That’s because people are just downright unpredictable.

Quite often the well meaning couple has simply forgotten to ask that person beforehand, assuming they can ask them on the day itself (to be the family photo usher). Or that one person might be sick and not even present on the day. That’s why printing at least three copies of the family group photos list is key, as sometimes even three copies isn’t enough!

And don’t be surprised at all to find that the person nominated to help with family group photos cannot be found precisely when they are needed. This especially applies to larger weddings at sprawling venues, or weddings that take place in buildings with multiple floors.

If you were a smoker, the best time to sneak off for a cigarette would be immediately after the wedding ceremony during the congratulations chaos. That is unfortunately also the time that family group photos are normally scheduled to take place. It is also not uncommon for many guests to use the bathroom after the ceremony, or to head straight to the bar which might be far from the ceremony location.

That’s why I highly recommend having at least TWO persons assigned to help you as the wedding photographer find the guests required for family group photos. I also recommend that you ask the couple to tell these people to introduce themselves to you immediately before the ceremony. That way, you can relatively quickly find these people when required by remembering what they are wearing.

If you have three copies of this list (which you can ask the client to email to you before the wedding day) then you are pretty much covered for any eventuality. You can’t rely on one person alone to help you with family group photos, and you should not rely on electronic devices that can fail, be slow to open and most importantly, timeout requiring the usher to enter their unlock pin for every photo. You should always retain a ‘master copy’ of the group list just in case those ushers go AWOL.

So call me old fashioned, but an actual printed list of family group photos is important. One of the two ushers will be crossing the photos off the list as they are taken. The other usher will have the same list and will be finding the guests required, making sure to find the next group while the current group is being photographed. Of course it rarely works out that efficiently, but we can at least aim for perfection?

As you gain more experience as a professional wedding photographer you will be absolutely amazed how unpredictable, unreliable and at times outright boorish guests can be at a wedding. Guests are there to celebrate and have fun. You are there to capture as many great photos as possible in the shortest possible time, and those two goals are in conflict because people who are relaxed are in no hurry at all.

I even print a guide for ushers which I hand out on the day of the wedding. It explains exactly what their roles are and means I don’t have to spend one minute explaining this in person on the day. Some photographers might think this is overkill. I have learnt through pain and anguish that there is no such thing as overkill when it comes to planning and preparing for family group photos. Firstly it demonstrates to those ushers that you ‘mean business’, and it also thanks them for their contribution just in case this is overlooked on the day.

Printed Family Group Photo Usher Quick Guide

Thanks very much for agreeing to help out today to usher guests in for family photos! You should have a printed list of group photos in order of priority to refer to.

To make it easier for everyone, please guests in the first group on the list about 5 minutes after the end of the ceremony and let them know they will be required shortly, and to please stay in this immediate area.

I will let you know the exact location for the family photos when they are about to start, based on the weather at the time, but it should be close to the ceremony location.

As I don’t know anybody personally on the list, I am very grateful to you for locating these guests and ushering them into the location without delay for photos, as quickly and efficiently as possible. If you can, please try to find the next group while the current group is being photographed. Each photo will take about 1-2 minutes to complete.

Please cross off each photo as they are taken so we don’t miss any on the list (either by yourself or another helper).

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers

Chris