Advice photographing Friends Daughter and boyfriend for Prom

I'm after a little advice. I don't photograph people very often but a friend has asked if I would take some photographs of his daughter and boyfriend before they go to the prom in their outfits. I am after some advice on the following:

1. Apart from them simply being stood next to one another what other poses could I use?

2. Due to the weather it looks like it will be indoors so will probably use a 430ex on camera, lastolite reflector and either my Sigma 17-70, Nifty fifty or 70-200mm f2.8. Which lens would be my best bit as I would imagine it would be my 17-70mm?

3. Would it be safer using a tripod due to the lower light conditions?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brian

Go to a local bookstore photo section and look at some books to get posing ideas. There's a ton of How To books out there now. It's one of those things you need to do quite a bit, nothing beats experience but you only get it by doing.

Keep it simple one lens one body, try a few dummy runs with some family or friends sometime beforehand. You cannot espect to produce expert results if you've never done it before.If you could work in daylight or evening light it would make it easier...where are you located? The sun does not go down till 8pm is the Eastern US so you could work easliy to 8:30pm at iso 400

You might visit Monte Zucker's site: http://www.montezucker​.com/

He was a briliant portrait photographer and teacher and his site is useful. Dennis

Thanks for the replies guys.

Thedruid, the problem I had was my friend asked me yesterday morning and I had to do it at around 6pm last night so I basically got home from work and went straight to his house. No time to read a book or even practice.

It wasn't too bad in the end but I was a little unhappy that the sun was high in the sky it was blowing out the top of his daughters blond hair. I'm not sure what I could do about it as there wasn't any shade to take the photos in the garden where the backdrop was acceptable.

I live and learn.

Would a difussed reflector reduced the amount of glare?