Tips and tricks for making formals less formal

[Scorrow1967]

I look at every wedding as an opportunity to learn and grow as a photographer. While I feel I'm solid on the fundamentals - about 30 weddings under my belt over the past three years - I want to try to develop more personality with my formals.

I like to vary poses and try to avoid settling for only the 'easy' lineups, but what I'm really wondering is if anyone has any suggestions on how to bring a more spontaneous smiles out of people, especially in a large group.

I read somewhere once to ask the bride or groom 'goose' each other occasionally during the formals to get a laugh. I used this at my last wedding to great success - some really natural reactions and laughter.

Anybody else have any suggestions or success stories that can share?

[zoomer]

Freestyle, dance pose, kiss your neighbor, kiss and cheer, ladies pick couples pose, jump, bootie slap, point at the cutest sexiest meanest funniest person in the group.
Encourage them to provide their own ideas for shots as well.

[WillCAD]

The best thing you can do to loosten people up when shooting it to be loose yourself. Tell jokes. Act goofy. Instead of asking them to say "Cheese", ask them to say something off the wall, like "Okay, everybody say Geronimoooooooooooooooo!" If it's a younger crowd, tell them to say "Cheesy Poofs!" [Note: It's a South Park thing.] "Cheeze whiz!" Works with most groups, too.

Get them to laugh. Laughs always look better for the candid shots, and laughing people have better, more natural posed smiles for the formals than people who are grumpy and tired and just putting a smile on for the picture.

Of course, you have to judge the group. Some groups will take it as sacrilidge or as a personal insult for a photographer to act loose and goofy during their wedding; they look on weddings as a solumn, dignified event akin to a funeral, and if the photographer deviates from that dour mood, he's considered horrendously tacky. But most wedding parties are a little happier and treat a wedding as a celebration, so it's okay for the photog to act a little happier and friendlier, too.

Just remember - a wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of the couple's lives, so be happy for them and have fun, and that will ingratiate you to them and make the formals process a lot less of a chore.

[ShepsMom]

My favorite: "Say Sex!" makes them giggle
or point out to some random guy and say "You don't want him to start taking his pants off, do you?f" brings a roar of laughter.

So far works like a charm. :D