Times Two Hearts

How to order your wedding group shot list so the family photos take 25 minutes, not 50

Guide · written September 2026

A note on this guide. This is new writing, published in 2026. It is not by Elizabeth Ramsdale, who wrote the original Times Two Hearts blog between 2010 and 2011 — her posts are still on her own blog, and nothing of hers has been copied here.

Most wedding group shot lists are a wish list. Ten or twelve combinations, jotted down in the order they occurred to you, usually late, usually the week of the wedding. Then on the day someone reads them out one at a time and the photographer builds each group from scratch. A name is called. That person has gone for a drink. The name is called again.

There is nothing wrong with the shots. The problem is the order.

Order the list by subtraction

Write the list biggest group first, then take people away. Every shot should end by releasing someone, so the crowd you are working with only ever gets smaller.

That one change does most of the work. Nobody is called back twice. Nobody stands about waiting to be added to something. The people you need longest — your parents, your wedding party — are the ones still there at the end, because they have not been sent off and fetched back.

The order to write your wedding photo list in

1. Everyone at the wedding
2. Both families together
3. One partner’s whole side, with you both
4. That side’s immediate family
5. That side’s parents
6. The other partner’s whole side, with you both
7. That side’s immediate family
8. That side’s parents
9. The wedding party
10. The two of you

Do the first one first, whatever else you change. It is the only shot that needs every guest in one place, and that is true for about four minutes after the ceremony and never again.

After shot 5, one entire side of the family is done and can go to the drinks. After shot 8, so is the other. By the time you reach the wedding party you are down to the people who expected to be standing there anyway.

Your photographer will call these the family formals. Same thing, different name for it.

Three things that matter more than the list

Give each side a wrangler. Someone from that family, loud, who knows every face. Not your photographer. They have never met your cousins and cannot pick them out of a marquee. A good wrangler saves more time than any shortening of the list.

Tell people the night before. Anyone in shots one to three should know they are wanted and roughly when. A guest who knows they are needed at half two does not wander to the car park at twenty past.

Pick the spot in advance. Somewhere with decent light and some shelter, close enough to the drinks that people can be released straight into them. Your photographer will have an opinion. Ask at the pre-wedding chat rather than on the day.

How long the group photos really take

Two to three minutes a shot, once people are moving. Ten shots is twenty-five minutes. Fifteen shots is closer to fifty, and fifty minutes is most of your drinks reception.

Ten is a good number. If your list is longer, it is usually because the same people appear in four near-identical groupings, and you will not be able to tell those apart in the album.

Send the family photos list to your photographer, not to yourself

The list is no use in your head or in a notes app on the day. Your photographer needs it in advance, the wrangler needs a copy, and someone needs to be ticking shots off as they happen so nothing is missed in the rush.

The short version