What exactly are Family Pictures?

We only did parents, siblings, and grandparents. If we included aunts and uncles and cousins we would’ve been there all day taking pictures!

That depends if you want to or not it's the pictures you want and are paying for so you choose otherwise if they want a picture with you they will ask!

I have a huge family and so does my FH (parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, cousins' kids, cousins' kids' kids). After the ceremony we are going to make an announcement for all family to stay behind for a group picture. It might take 10 minutes to get everyone in and coordinated but a large high quality family photo is always a fun "Where's Waldo?" later. My cousins have successfully done it in the past and it is fun to watch our family grow.

It can be whatever you want. We are planning to do parents, siblings, nieces, and grandparents only. Including aunts, uncles, and cousins would mean taking half of our guest list out of cocktail hour to do photos and would take forever. Hopefully we'll get some less formal pictures with them during the reception.

View Quoted Comment

Okay I agree. We both have huge families, lots of cousins. And I really think my money's worth is going towards great couple pictures. We will take pictures with extended family during the reception!

View Quoted Comment

That's true! I think we are going to do one huge group photo on the deck/steps outside with everyone so this would be similar. I just can't imagine someone having to wrangle our entire extended family and our couple pictures are really important to me, so we need all the time we can get during cocktail hour.

Depends on what you want. Classic photos are grandparents, parents, and siblings. With a larger family I'd probably want more couple's photos and immediate family with some casual photos of extended family

You are right. It's typically immediate family: grandparents, parents, siblings, and nieces/nephews.

View Quoted Comment

Okay cool. Thank god! I didn't want to offend anyone but also really didn't want to have the extended family pictures orchestrated and have that headache.

You can do whatever groups you want. We are doing a majority of our family pictures beforehand with the immediate families and my grandmother. I’m hoping to get a full family picture after dinner with aunts, uncles and cousins. We have done this at both my sisters weddings and basically the dj just said something like will the entire Smith family please come to the dance floor for a picture. And it was done in 5 minutes

View Quoted Comment

You can make the group photo quick, who ever shows up and stands on the steps is in the picture, if they can't coordinate themselves they don't make it in. I wouldn't spend too much time on it. Cocktail hour should be 45-60 minutes. You would be surprised how many pictures you can get done if it is just the two of you.

Our photographer said the first picture she does is everyone who is related to the bride and groom. Then she narrows it down to immediate family. So if you had a huge family, your third cousins would probably only be in the first picture or two, but then your parents and siblings would stay to be in most of them!

It basically means whatever photos you want to get with family who aren't part of the wedding party. That could mean siblings, parents, grandparents, even aunts, uncles and cousins. It's going to be specific to each couple, as all families are different. And it depends on what you and FH want. Maybe you don't care about getting photos with cousin Susie, but a photo with great aunt Millie is very important. But yes, it means just how it sounds--family.

It really just refers to a chunk of time to take photos with whoever you want/have time for. It's not a set in stone thing, so whatever you decide should be fine! For our time dedicated to "family photos" (before and during the very beginning of our cocktail hour) we did parents, grandparents, siblings, bridal party, and whoever was hanging out at the venue early enough and wanted to take some photos.

Throughout the rest of the night people will steal you and take photos, so you definitely don't have to worry about hitting everything at once

Its completely up to you who you want in pictures. We are only doing parents, grandparents, siblings, and wedding party with us for professional pictures. Then any other pictures with any extended family will just be based on who wants them and take those pictures with regular cell phones or cameras.

It depends on what you want. At one of my cousin's wedding, they did a large group photo with all cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. They also had pictures taken of just the parent and grandparent couples, no bride and groom. It was like an opportunity for everyone to update their family photo. But at another they didn't do any of that. I think it is up to you and what you want, and who you want to be included.

That's totally up to you. We're keeping it to just parents, grandparents and siblings during cocktail hour. We both have large families and that would take up too much time. If our cousins want to snag a picture with us during the reception that's fine.

You can tell your photographer to do like all the cousins in one picture. At FH cousin's wedding, they had a list and right after the ceremony his assistant called people up who the bride and groom had written down so it wasn't messy. You can for sure write down on a list who you want pictures taken with because I know I have an aunt I want a picture with and a great aunt too. We're doing a first look so that will help with those pictures with the bridal party.

I think it means whatever you want it to mean. But also see if your photographer has suggestions. My photographer gave me like 9 poses that were "have to have" and then let me squeeze a few more in at the time of pictures. I simply didn't have enough poses with my confusing crazy family to include more than immediate family. She said if we wanted the time to get good shots of me and the hubs we had to limit the millions of poses. I'm glad we did.

View Quoted Comment

I agree with this. I think we'll just stick to immediate family. I will ask FH about what he thinks about his half siblings simply because they aren't close at all. The age gap kind of did that and that they're so far away. We are doing some separate bridal party pics before the ceremony too to alleviate a lot of those during cocktail hour! Idk, to me I really want our couple pictures the most, and I'd like to relax a little bit too and actually eat some apps/have a cocktail with the bridal party before we go into the reception!