It’s fair to say that these days it’s rare to be given a formals shot list that totals more than six to a dozen combinations, those usually being bride and groom with whole wedding guest party, parents, grandparents, siblings, bridal party and then just bride and groom on their own. I have a mantra used to describe the way I work when it comes to portraits; ‘professionally brisk;’ enough time to nail the shot, but not too long as to impose too heavily on time that should be spent with their guests. Sometimes that list does get expanded and I’ll always work to a client’s list objective, but if you go by what you see within this site, it’s probably quite clear that my strength and (here comes an overused word in my industry) passion, is for recording the day as I see it, instead of working from spreadsheets and lists. What often happens when long lists are handed down, is that I hear, after just fifteen minutes, guests commenting that this is taking too long, or worse still, and I wince when I hear it, internally obviously; “You two must be sick and tired of all these photos!” I’ll always work to achieve the aspirations of my clients, even if it does feel a little too heavy on portraits, but I’m posting this image today within the 365 feature of back catalogue wedding images, because I want to show that even when not working from lists, guests have a way of setting up their own group portraits. And you know what, when they do, very often I’ll be there too capturing it in a mite of the time it takes a modern compact camera to focus, select or deselect flash and capture. And as a postscript to that ‘you know what,’ these shots are often far better than the staged ones. Guests play to each other in an informally fabulous way!