Family has a tendency to wander off and start mingling after the ceremony so I generally suggest doing family portraits before. If you’d rather do family portraits during cocktail hour (so family doesn’t see you before the ceremony) that’s another option. It typically just takes longer to track people down.

I recommend including only immediate family in the formal portrait session (parents, siblings, grandparents, etc) because of how much time it eats up in your schedule when we start including extended family (we can always get photos of the rest of your family while visiting tables during reception or via a receiving line). This is usually my couples’ least favorite part of the day, so I want to make it as quick and painless as possible. If you do want to include extended family, that’s great too! Just be prepared for a longer session. If your list is longer than 25 groupings, I recommend allowing at least 45 minutes.

I don’t recommend breaking up family portraits into two chunks (some family portraits before the ceremony and some after). This ends up taking twice as long to redo groupings in two separate sessions. For example: if you aren’t doing a first look, pre-ceremony family portraits would be without your significant other; then after the ceremony, we would have to arrange the same groups to add in your new spouse! Whereas it only takes me one second to add in another person when they’re already set up, but twice as long to gather those people and set it up twice. So in a no-first look scenario, all the family portraits should be done in one session after the ceremony to make the best use of time.