I woke up the other night in a cold sweat from the very first nightmare about a wedding I have ever had. Had it been just any nightmare, I probably would have pulled up the duvet, tried to score an extra couples of inches of bed by nudging my wife to the right and just left it there. But the problem was that this nightmare was far too real for comfort. Here’s how it went: There I was, shooting the formals when all of a sudden we’d run out of time and the couple had to enter the reception. I hadn’t had a moment to shoot them and I’d only shot about a quarter of the photographs on their formals list. End of dream.

I jumped out of bed and downed some Coke, trying to calm myself (which took a few minutes if the truth be told). Then I didn’t want to go back to sleep in case I had the same dream again. Yes, a bit namby-pamby I know, but nonetheless it’s true and it really did happen. But here’s why it scared the living Vuvuzela out of me…

Whenever I meet my wedding couples, I caution them to keep the list of formals they’d like as tidy is possible. Look, sometimes it’s not so easy when you have large families and extended families and mates who have flown in from the four corners of the earth (and sometimes I think from different planets!) Of course you want to give everybody a bit of a nod when it comes to the formals. But here’s the bottom line: don’t. Just don’t. What you do need to do is put yourselves first – it’s your wedding day after all. So yes, have some of your nearest and dearest in your formal photographs and then move on to yourselves. Still not so easy, then let me help you through this chicken curry:

Time is very, very precious. Good formals – the kind you’ll love forever and ever, take time. Which you don’t really have on your wedding day because you’re in big demand. At a minimum, you need to set aside an hour and a half of dedicated time for the formals. And I mean dedicated time – not 20 minutes of traveling to the reception venue thrown in as part of the hour and a half. 90 full ticks around the clock, just for your photos. And that’s the minimum! Look, I’m by no means advocating 2 or 3 hours out there because you’re guests are going to start getting seriously hacked off. But you do need to allocate decent time if you want a decent result.

Draw up your list. Now let’s try a quick exercise – draw up your formals list as you’d like it. Bride & groom with bride’s family; bride & groom with groom’s family; bride with her mom and dad; bride with his mom and dad; bride with siblings; bride with bridesmaids; bride with bridesmaids & flowergirls; oops sorry, we forgot bride & groom with groomsmen, flowergirls and wedding coordinator. Oh, and what about the big group shot of all family and friends together – throw it in please – you know you want to! Okay, draw up your list, then go to the next point below.

90 minutes screams by fast. Marvy. Now that you have your list, divide each shot up, allowing 5 minutes per shot. My-my, look at that – you just shot past your 90-minute time limit without any shots of yourselves alone yet. How cool am I? And if you didn’t shoot past that 90-minute limit, you’re either darned close to it or you cheated. So now take another look at your list and start gutting it like no tomorrow. Ideally, you want to allow at least 45 minutes of that time for the two of you alone. Believe me, that hour and a half will shoot past faster than you will ever believe possible. Good, quality shots take a little bit of preparation and unless the time is put aside, you’ll run the risk of getting plenty of quantity, but not much quality which is a real pity. So put yourselves first – the others have either had their wedding day or it’s still to come – but today is yours.

Be clever. Guys, we live in a digital age. At any given wedding, I’ll turn around during the formals and there will be 20 people all taking the shot (or variations on the shot) with me. That’s pretty awesome. So use your family and friends to take the pressure off by having them take some of the more general family photographs. You don’t need to forsake all the shots you want, you just need to box clever. You’re paying your photographer a lot of loot to take your photographs, so it makes complete sense to go for quality. Take the pressure off yourselves and your photographer by getting your family and friends to take care of the more common photos.

Organisation never fails. If your formals list is organized, if your photographer has done his homework properly, and if you put yourselves first, you’ll end up very, very happy with the final outcome. It really is simple, so please, I beg you – keep it simple. And in the end I bet you’ll get a lot more stunning photos than you bargained for!