When it comes to posing the wedding party I know a lot of photographers, myself included, draw a blank on what to do with them. Whether it’s a small party of 4 or 14 how do we pose them together and make it fun yet painless!

One of the main things I do is get them walking. Sometimes it can feel a bit awkward for them but I give them lots of encouragement along the way and just laugh with them. This first image is one of my absolute favorite images but it wasn’t posed at all! I didn’t give any direction, we were just walking from one location to the other. They were natural and I was able to capture these ladies just having fun!

That’s what we want, we want to have posed images of them together but we also want them to have fun and get natural images. My first tip to to have them walk. Whether you direct them to walk towards you or capture them walking from one location to another; have them walk. This is natural movement and breaks up the posy images.

My next tip for posing the full wedding party is to stagger them. This can be tricky if you’re pressed for time but if you have a few minutes put them all in different poses to create a little more interest.

The standard pose of them either alternating bridesmaid/groomsmen or all in a line is another great pose to make sure you get.

One thing that I’ve used but only done a couple of times for the whole wedding party is to have them play the game “telephone”. It sounds super weird and it definitely depends on the party but it can totally work to get some genuine laughter!! I have a groomsman start it and the last person shout it out!

When it comes to posing the bridesmaids and groomsmen individually, we try to mix it up a bit.

For the guys we have the standard poses; ie. standing in a line with their hands in pockets, jackets unbuttoned with arms around each other, etc. But we also like to try to give them a fun GQ posed shot because all guys want to look cool. So we stagger them a bit and have them all do something a little bit different.

A little more GQ.

For the bridesmaids I do a little bit of the same thing, I’ll have them in a straight line looking at me then I’ll have them look at each other. I’ll announce that it’s going to feel a bit awkward but I have them start talking and laughing. Most of the time they feel so silly fake laughing that the laughs become super genuine!

Another thing you can do is have the bridesmaids take turns sharing their favorite memory of the bride; depending on time and amount of bridesmaids of course. But this can elicit laughter, tears, and pure joy along with a great memory when they look back on their images.

I’ll also do a bit of staggering for the ladies as well.

For this one I just simply asked them to walk up to her and stand however they feel comfortable. To me this images feel a little more natural.

For these ladies, the left image was just them walking to their location while the one on the right is super posed. While both images are completely different it gives my bride a variety of looks of her girls.

I hope this helps you pose your next wedding party! If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment below!