A wedding family photo list works best at about twelve groupings, and twelve groupings take about twenty minutes to photograph when everyone on the list is standing right there. Most wedding planning guides set aside thirty minutes for family formals, and thirty minutes is what a longer list takes. Twenty minutes is what you get when the list is immediate family only and nobody has to be tracked down. I’m McKenzie, a Las Vegas wedding photographer. I’ve photographed more than 300 weddings since 2009, and I’m the person calling the names at the formals, so I can tell you what makes the difference between the two numbers.

Most of the delay comes from tracking people down. The photographing itself is quick, and the standard figure is about two minutes for each additional grouping once everyone is gathered. So two things decide how long you stand there: how many groupings you asked for, and how fast the people in them show up. You can settle both tonight, at your kitchen table.

The default wedding family photo list

Here’s the list I’d hand a couple who both have parents still together, in the order I’d shoot it. Copy the twelve lines and fill in the blanks.

Every [names] is a blank for you to fill in. Type full first and last names, everybody who belongs in that photo. Leave the role words where they are, because your photographer reads the names out loud and the role word tells them who they’re looking for. Grouping one is the exception. Nobody has to be picked out of a crowd for that one, so “everyone on this list” is all it needs to say.

Make the list together, in one sitting. Half of it is your family and half of it is your partner’s, and neither of you can write the other half from memory. Your photographer gets one list from the two of you, not one each.

Everyone on this list, with the two of you
All the grandparents: yours, [names], and your partner’s, [names], with the two of you
Your grandparents, [names], with your parents, [names], and the two of you
Your partner’s grandparents, [names], with your partner’s parents, [names], and the two of you
Your whole side: your parents, [names], your siblings and their partners, [names], your nieces and nephews, [names], with the two of you
Your parents, [names], and your siblings, [names], with the two of you
Your parents, [names], with the two of you
Your parents, [names], with you
Your partner’s whole side: their parents, [names], their siblings and their partners, [names], their nieces and nephews, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], and their siblings, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], with your partner

A bride and groom walk arm in arm across a sunlit lawn with four children in ivory and tan beside them

Once the blanks are filled in, that list is finished. Don’t reformat it, and don’t rewrite it into a document. Send it exactly as it reads.

Why the list needs full names instead of roles

Your photographer has never met any of these people. At a wedding I’m shooting, a line that says only “bride’s parents” means I stand in front of a hundred guests and ask who that is, then wait while somebody goes and gets them. If it says “your parents, Karen Miller and Dave Miller,” I call them by name and they walk up. That’s the standard advice too, and it’s why the blanks sit inside the list instead of in a note underneath it.

Where the kids go

Nieces and nephews are already on that list, and here’s exactly where, because forgetting the kids is a common worry. They go with their own parents, inside the whole side groupings, numbers five and nine, and inside grouping one with everybody else. Write their names in like everybody else’s.

Your flower girl and ring bearer are usually somebody’s kids, and if they’re family, those same groupings already cover them. If they aren’t family, they belong on the wedding party list instead. Small children run out of patience faster than any adult in the line, so if a grouping has little kids in it, move it near the front and have somebody walk them off to a snack as soon as it’s done.

Three small children squeezed onto a boulder, one holding a basket of petals, all looking done with waiting

The people who get left off

Forgetting somebody is the part of this that worries couples most, and ten minutes of checking takes care of it. What gets forgotten is almost never a whole grouping. It’s one person, and it’s usually somebody who matters to the family but doesn’t have a simple title. Before you send the list, check it against these:

Godparents
Stepsiblings, and stepparents’ kids who grew up in the house
A parent’s partner of many years who they never married
A grandparent’s second spouse
The aunt, uncle, or grandparent who raised you, or helped raise you

Two checks will catch almost anyone you missed. First, read your list out loud to each of your parents, because a parent will name the missing person right away. Second, picture the front two rows of your ceremony, both sides. If somebody sitting there isn’t in a single grouping on your list, decide tonight whether they should be, instead of deciding it on the wedding day.

Adding one person to a grouping you already have costs no extra time. Adding a whole new grouping does, and that’s a different decision.

If a parent has died

You decide what those groupings look like, and there’s no version of it that’s wrong. Some couples take the photos exactly as listed with the parent who’s here. Some want a photo with whoever stood in, a stepparent, an aunt, an older brother, a family friend. Whatever you choose, write it into the list the way you want it, so nobody is calling out the name of someone who isn’t there in front of everybody.

The wedding party doesn’t go on this list

No. Family formals and wedding party photos are two separate lists, shot in the same window. Keep the wedding party list short, and hand your photographer both. The common advice is to cap formal portraits at around fifteen groupings total, counting family and wedding party together, so twelve family groupings leaves you about three for the wedding party.

A bride and her wedding party pose and clown on a path, groomsmen in black tuxedos and bridesmaids in burgundy

Shoot the biggest group first, then work down

The list above runs largest group first, then grandparents, then smaller and smaller groupings until it’s just one of you and your parents. There are two reasons for that order. Starting with everybody means nobody stands off to the side wondering whether they made the list. And as the groupings get smaller, people are finished and free to go. That’s the same logic behind keeping the list short and saving the big extended family photos for the reception: the big group, then grandparents, then those relatives head off to the party. The people who appear in the fewest groupings are the ones who leave soonest, so the crowd you’re managing gets smaller the whole way down.

That’s why grandparents sit at numbers two, three, and four. They’re in the fewest groupings, and they’re the people you least want standing in the sun or on their feet in a hallway while you work through the rest. Photograph them early and send them off to sit down with a drink. Do the same for anybody else who can’t stand for long, an uncle on a cane, a guest recovering from surgery, someone eight months pregnant. Move their groupings up and get them to a chair.

A bride holding red roses hugs an older man at the end of the aisle while family stand on both sides

How much time each extra grouping adds

Your list will probably grow a little past twelve, and that’s fine as long as you know what each addition costs. Each extra grouping adds about two minutes. Here’s what that adds up to as the list grows.

Your list	Groupings	Time to photograph
The twelve above	12	about 20 minutes
Plus one photo of each of you with just your siblings	14	about 24 minutes
Plus one big extended family photo on your side and one on your partner’s	16	about 28 minutes
Every grouping anyone in the family asks for, which often lands near thirty	30	close to an hour

Those are shooting times, with everyone already standing there. None of them include finding people, and finding people is what makes every row in that table run longer.

The bottom row is the one to stay away from, and here’s why. Family formals share the cocktail hour with wedding party photos and photos of just the two of you, and a normal cocktail hour is sixty minutes. Those three things do not fit inside sixty minutes, so something gets cut on the day, and the family list is where the cutting happens. Do it now, at your own kitchen table, instead of in a hallway with your grandmother waiting.

What to take off the list

Three questions decide almost every cut.

Is this a grouping of extended family? Aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends are where lists double in size. One photo with your dad’s whole side is a real photo worth having. Taking that same photo again, once for each family standing inside it, gives you a stack of nearly identical pictures in the same spot.
Are these the same people I already have? Your parents and your siblings are together in grouping five, and again in grouping six. Standing those same people in a slightly different order gives you a photo you already have.
Does this need somebody I already sent away? Say your grandmother is in grouping three and she’s back at cocktail hour with a drink. A grouping near the bottom of the list with her in it means somebody has to go find her again, in a crowded room, in heels. Move it up next to her other groupings, or take it off.

Extended family is the question that stalls most lists, so here’s my answer. Those photos are worth having. Put one big grouping per side near the front of the list, and take anything past that at the reception, where people are already standing around together and nobody is waiting on you.

A groom in a cream sherwani and pink turban walks between two older relatives as family crowd in around him

Blended families and divorced parents

There’s no single right way to handle this, because it depends entirely on how the people involved get along. Planning guides land in the same place, and it comes down to two choices. If your parents are on good terms, you can put one on each side of you and take the photo. If they aren’t, you photograph each parent separately, with their current spouse and their own family. In that second case, any grouping that would put the two of them in one photo comes off the list.

Here is that second version written out in full, for a couple where one partner’s parents are divorced and the dad has remarried. It’s a complete list. Use it instead of the twelve above, not alongside them. Same rules apply: fill in every [names] blank, and leave the role words where they are.

Everyone on this list who’s comfortable being in one photo together, with the two of you
All the grandparents: yours, [names], and your partner’s, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s grandparents, [names], with your partner’s parents, [names], and the two of you
Your mom’s side: your mom, [name], her parents, [names], your siblings and their partners and kids, [names], with the two of you
Your mom, [name], with the two of you
Your mom, [name], with you
Your dad’s side: your dad and his wife, [names], his parents, [names], your siblings and their partners and kids, [names], with the two of you
Your dad and his wife, [names], with the two of you
Your dad, [name], with you
Your partner’s whole side: their parents, [names], their siblings and their partners, [names], their nieces and nephews, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], and their siblings, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], with the two of you
Your partner’s parents, [names], with your partner

A groom dances with an older woman in a blue lace gown on an outdoor floor under string lights at night

That’s thirteen groupings instead of twelve, so about two minutes longer. If you want a photo of you with just your siblings, add it here the same way you would on the default list. It’s a useful one in a blended family, because it’s the only photo with you and your siblings in it and no parents at all.

Two things make a list like this work. Tell your photographer in advance, in writing, which people shouldn’t be posed together, so nobody gets waved into a photo by accident. And tell your family about the photo plan in advance instead of on the day. Nobody wants to find out which photos they’re in, and which ones they aren’t, while a photographer is calling names in front of a hundred guests.

Before or after the ceremony, and where

You don’t have to pick one or the other. You can split the list. Any grouping that doesn’t need both of you in the photo can be taken before the ceremony, while everyone is dressed, fresh, and already in the building.

On the twelve above, that’s exactly two: number eight, your parents with you, and number twelve, your partner’s parents with your partner. The other ten all have the two of you in them, so they wait until after the ceremony. On the thirteen grouping blended list it’s three, numbers six, nine, and thirteen, for the same reason. Two groupings is about four minutes, and I’d rather give you that number straight than let you plan around a bigger one. Splitting the list saves more time as the list grows, because the groupings couples add are almost always the ones with only one of you in them. If you add the sibling photos from the table above, take them before the ceremony and they add nothing to your window after it.

A bride crouches to hug a young girl in a white dress, the moment reflected in a tall mirror

If you’re also deciding whether to see each other beforehand, that’s a separate question and I wrote about it in my post on first looks. For how the rest of the day fits around all of this, see building a wedding timeline without a first look.

Where formals happen matters as much as when. Take them right where the ceremony ended, or a very short walk from it. Not a scenic spot across the property, not up a hill, not in a different building. Walking twenty people to a new spot takes much longer than you would expect from walking it yourself, and the relatives who have the hardest time with it are the older ones in dress shoes.

Who gathers everybody, and what to tell them

Pick one person on each side of the family whose only job is to go get people. You want somebody who knows every face, isn’t in most of the photos, and doesn’t mind raising their voice a little. Planning guides call this the point person. Give each of them a copy of the list a week ahead, so they can read the next names off it while the current group is being photographed.

Then text everyone on the list the week before. Something like this works:

Hi! You’re on our family photo list. Right after the ceremony we’re taking family photos in the same spot, so please stay put instead of heading to cocktail hour. It takes about twenty minutes and then you’re free.

The people in your before ceremony groupings need a second, shorter message, because the text above gives them the wrong time. On the default list that’s four people: your parents and your partner’s parents. Send them this as well:

One more thing: we’re doing a couple of family photos before the ceremony too. Can you meet us at [where] at [time]? It’s just a few minutes, and then the rest is right after the ceremony with everybody else.

And ask your officiant to say a version of the first one out loud before everyone gets up to leave:

Before you head to cocktail hour, if you’re family, please stay right here in your seats. Family photos are happening in this room and it takes about twenty minutes.

Telling people in advance that they’re expected to stay is the most useful thing you can do for this part of your day. When everyone already knows, nobody has to be hunted down. They’re standing right there, and the twenty minutes goes entirely to taking the photos.

A groom kisses his bride in an open doorway as two lines of family and guests clap them out

What format to send it in, and when

Send the filled in list exactly as it is: numbered, in shooting order, with names in every blank. A plain email or a shared document is fine. Skip the spreadsheet, and don’t send a photo of a handwritten page. Add a short note at the bottom for anything your photographer wouldn’t guess: who shouldn’t stand together, who’s flying in that morning, which grandmother goes by her middle name.

The common advice is to finalize the list with your photographer well before the day. I ask for it about a month out, when we go through the timeline on our planning call. That gives us time to trim it together if it has grown past what your window can hold, and it gives you time to tell your family what the plan is.

When the day runs late anyway

Sometimes the day runs late no matter what you did. The ceremony starts fifteen minutes behind, the venue needs the room, and your twenty minutes turns into ten. Around here that happens a lot, because plenty of Las Vegas chapels and venues book thirty minute ceremony slots and another couple is walking in behind you.

You don’t fill this last list in. It’s the order to hand your photographer if you run short on time, and it’s the order I work in when it happens to me:

Everybody together in one photo
Grandparents
Your parents with you, and your partner’s parents with your partner
Each side’s immediate family with the two of you

Everything below that gets taken at the reception, where people are already standing in groups with drinks in their hands. Those photos come out looser than the posed ones, and nobody is standing in a line waiting.

Two brides lifted on chairs during the hora, holding opposite ends of a napkin between them

Here’s what to do tonight, in order. Fill in the names on whichever of the two lists above fits your family, the twelve grouping version or the thirteen grouping one. Pick the two people who will go get everybody, one on each side of the family, and send them a copy. Write the text you’re going to send your family next week. Everything else on this page, the officiant announcement, the note at the bottom, the extra sibling photos, can wait for another evening.

If you’re getting married in Las Vegas and you aren’t sure whether your list is too long, send it to me and I’ll tell you. Email me at mckenzie@msweddingimage.com, or reach out here, and tell me about your day. I’m happy to go through it with you, and if you’re still deciding who’s photographing all of this, calling out those names is part of what I do at every wedding I shoot.

Wedding Family Photo List: 12 Groupings, 20 Minutes