Advice for posing and crowd control?

[Sky Blue Iris]

I've been shooting a lot of weddings recently and while they all go smoothly and everyone ends up happy I feel I need to improve my strategy for gathering and posing groups of strangers quickly and creatively without the need for loud noises, snapping or pointing. Any experienced event photographers have any advice on how to get what's her name to move a little to the left and grandma to take a knee and you with the hairpiece turn to the left, no your left, ok no that's too much, ok now everyone smile?

[RexK_Cozumel]

get one of the bridesmaids or cousins or someone that knows everyone's names to help you out.

Also if you can get snap shots of the people at the wedding rehersal then you can print out a contact sheet for your photo assistant with names and relations added. Makes life a lot easier when you tell your photo assistant to go round up people for the pictures.