There was laughter, and drinks, even a bridesmaid trying to get a stain out of her dress. I just kept working. I could see the shapes form in front of me. A jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved, and as each person found their way into my scene everyone became calmer. One by one I had managed to make everyone feel important and beautiful, including the handsome men.
Who knew 11 years before I was dancing my way through a set in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and rehearsing over and over again Bob Fossie’s The Cell Block Tango from Chicago. It was my life as a performer that gave me a foundation for posing. The difference is that my couples and their friends are not professional dancers or models. They are real people with amazing personalities that I couldn’t ignore. In fact, I want to embrace each and everyone that I photograph. They are important, wonderful people who deserve to feel comfortable, have fun, and look great!
Here are a few of my large group shots and tips on how I posed them while keeping the day running smoothly!
Top Tips:
1) Gauge your clients’ expectations: For large group shots, it takes me an average of 10-15 minutes per shot. I am very honest with them about this. Weddings on a tight schedule may choose to have three stunning bridal party shots instead of a whole bunch.
2) Allow the bridal party members to be themselves: By coming up with their own creative posing for the fun shots, their individual personalities evolve and you have now created a reminder for the couple as to why these people are their friends. This is what they love most about their bridal party.
3) Don’t stress too much: Start with the bride and groom, then pose people around them. Have the bridal party stand behind you looking at the scene you are creating, then pull people individually into your scene. This allows you to look at the bridal party and see how they naturally stand, see who they interact with, and pose them in a comfortable way.
4) This isn’t about perfection: It’s about personality and having fun while creating a one-of-a-kind piece of art for your bride and groom. If a bridesmaid’s hand isn’t in the right spot, or someone has bad posture you can make minor adjustments, but do not criticize them or get frustrated if they can’t do what you are asking. Remember this is who they are, and they aren’t professional models.
5) Compliment people: If the shot is good, tell them they did a good job. If they look really pretty in the dresses, compliment the color choice or the gowns. Find something positive to say, remember these wonderful people are here to work for you during the portrait time. They need to be told they are doing a good job!
Shooting with different levels in mind, I placed the bride and groom with their cute pup first. Then I added the maid of honor and the best man. Though some of their poses seem similar, they are in fact each different. I would demonstrate where and what I wanted them to do, and then would have them each put their own spin on it. Sometimes I would look at someone and say, “You look good. Will you do that right here?” I want a good mix of color and a good mix of girls and guys on each side. Not including the bride and groom, if you notice, there are six guys on the right side and three guys on the left, while there are six bridesmaids including the flower girl on the right and four bridesmaids on the left. Keeping numbers all even or all odd helps in the aesthetic of the photo.
In this arrangement, I knew that I wanted the bride and the flower girl to pull opposite sides since both of their dresses were white. I still began with the bride and posed her maid of honor to her left. Then I worked with height. Placing the girl with the closest height to the maid of honor next to the bride. That way, their heads made a pretty little triangle. The next tallest girl sat in a chair that I borrowed from the venue. As you may notice the height of the girl sitting on the arm of the chair is similar to the other three girls standing to the right. And I finished off the pose by creating another triangle with the bridesmaid that is kneeling. That also allowed the flower girl to have more of a pose than to just stand there and the flower girl wasn’t the shortest in the pose, which would have pulled too much attention to her.
Props can be so much fun! This group of guys requested a photo with their groomsmen’s gifts. I started by looking at how each guy was naturally holding his bat, and then adjusted them to achieve variance and balance. To pull attention to the groom, I gave him the most dominant pose by squaring his shoulders with the camera, and opening his suit jacket, while all the other groomsmen are turned slightly away from the camera in different directions and have their jackets buttoned.
Notice something different here? I asked the bride to sit for this group shot. She had fallen and injured her head a few days before the wedding, which was nearly cancelled. Needless to say, she was unable to stand for long periods of time, so I sat her in a chair in the right third, and posed the groom just behind her. This group had a lot of very tall groomsmen who would have pulled too much attention if they all stood, so I placed the two tallest groomsmen on the ground, bringing the attention back to the bride in a more pleasing way.
Sometimes, when I have a very large group posed in a beautiful environment, I like to pull back and get an environmental shot like this one. It just enhances that dramatic feeling. Don’t worry, I also took a tighter more traditional photo, so the bride and groom have both!
A well-posed group of guys in nice suits always looks phenomenal! This group is posed in the “V Formation” which is a classic for guys. It allows every groomsman to have an open, wide stance, which is masculine. The beauty of the formation is that the groom ends up being the closest body to the camera, so no mater how tall or short, he draws the most attention.
Break a leg! These two grooms were incredibly talented. One is a professional ballet dancer while the other is a pharmacist. When asked to do something fun, the performers broke out with moves, while the analytical bunch supported the dancers.
I love posing groups on wide, tall staircases because it allows for the creation of multiple levels with such ease! The challenge here was working around the banisters while creating a cohesive group despite the physical barriers. I achieved this by having some of the bridesmaids lean into the banister in the top row, and placing the seated people close to the banister in the bottom row. Notice that the color dispersion and placement of each person is not completely symmetrical, this helps the shot from looking stiff and unnatural.
Boys will be boys, if you let them! I always stand back after the more formal shot and ask the group to take a few seconds and come up with something that represents them. I always say they have three seconds, they usually ask for more time. ‘I say ok, Let’s do this in ten”. And I smile. Turning away, I let them surprise me with what they come up with, and I am always surprised. Turn your camera on rapid fire, you never know if someone will jump. I shoot multiple shots. For instance, this took the groom a few seconds to get his flask up, the guy to get into the pushup position, and the gentleman on the far right to get his jacket all the way down. I then chose the best image out of the five or six I shot.
How to show off a tall beautiful bride: In this group, the bride is the tallest standing person. We arranged the bridesmaids around her creating multiple levels by using stools of two different heights. The tallest bridesmaid is seated to allow the bride to have the high-point in this image.
I hope that these few examples and tips help you photograph bridal parties with more panache and confidence!
Erin Hernandez-Reisner is an internationally award winning photographer. Before receiving her BFA in Photography and Minor in Art History, Erin was an actress. Each step strategically choreographed built the foundation for her photography. She has been published 60 times and is in the top 10% of Photographers in the world. Erin and her husband, Marco, own Photos Edge, a wedding and portrait photography studio in Kansas City, MO.
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