Shooting a Family Portrait at the Beach

I'm getting ready to shoot some family portraits at the beach in about an hour and a half to an hour before sunset. Just looking for any quick pointers y'all might have. I won't be using my gear, I'm just helping some folks staying in the same condo complex as us. So I'll have like 10 minutes to get 6-7 group photos. Put my back to the Sun, or slightly at an angle? The coastline runs east-west.

Thanks for any tips.

So they had a Nikon D5200, and an 18-55mm lens attached. I've never used Nikon before so the one thing I wanted to do but couldn't find fast enough was use spot metering. They didn't know how to use their camera at all, just left it on the green box all the time. With the east-west coast and sun about 75 minutes from setting, I had them stand facing north with the Gulf of Mexico behind them. The shadows weren't too hard across their faces, had them a little bit at an angle to get more illumination and zoomed to crop all people and chairs out of the image. Just 4 groups, with about 3-4 shots each group. We used a water bottle full of sea shells to keep the attention of the infant which worked amazingly well. I shot in aperture priority at f/8, ISO 100 and let the camera set the shutter speed. I was working fast and did 20 shots in about 2-3 minutes.

Although this "job" (got paid in two six packs of IPA), is over. I'd still be interested to hear the experiences and tips from folks who have done family portraits on the beach at sunset. I'm sure this situation will come up again in my lifetime.

I'm hoping to get the files from them to do some edits, so if I do, I'll share with y'all.