Inspired Photo Blog

Alright, so I exaggerated just a bit. The truth is that the average bridal party has three bridesmaids and three groomsmen. Not so bad. But at some weddings I’ve faced the challenge of photographing bridal parties with nearly three times that number of people. With nearly 20 attendants in a bridal party, trying to come up with exciting ways of posing large groups of people is always a challenge.

Family photographs always come first at weddings and when things run long, as they almost always do, it’s the bridal party that has to make up time. Many couples have their best friends in the bridal party and to them, they are every bit as important as family. With two photographers, it’s easy to separate the family and bridal party. We can be in two places at the same time. But at some point, the entire group has to be photographed.

So what can you do? Well, the most obvious solution is to line them up. With so many people, it can quickly turn into a panoramic. We’ve all seen these line ‘em up poses. If you group them together, it can start looking like a mob. Striking a nice balance between the two is the challenge. I always look for ways to capture the group as a whole, but give each person the space to express their own unique personality.

Here are two examples illustrating this point. One is from the 2004 wedding of Stephanie and Joe and the other is from the recent wedding of Karra and Paul. These are great images to share because of the number of people. Also, Karra was a bridesmaid in Stephanie’s wedding and Stephanie was a bridesmaid in Karra’s wedding. See if you can find them!

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This panoramic image is actually a composite of 17 separate images. Before the wedding, I previsualized how I wanted to photograph this fun and rowdy group of friends. There was no wall large enough to photograph the entire party, so I came up with the idea of finding a nice section of wall and photographing them individually, being themselves.

The biggest challenge was time. This whole sequence was photographed in under 5 minutes and the bridal party left, arm in arm, for the reception. Normally, I try to stay away from harsh sunlight, but I wanted the shadow on the wall to give it more depth and energy. The stripe on the wall was an unexpected challenge and I had hoped to merge these all together seamlessly. In the end, I decided that I liked the chopped up look of the final panoramic. I hope to try this again at another wedding this summer. We’ll see where this idea takes me, so stay tuned!