You have a lot of suggestions here for "what", I'm going to give you a suggestion for "how."

From your original post, it seems that you haven't done a lot of this type of work, so...

1. Be respectful, people don't want their photos taken while putting food in their mouths

2. to get good photos, take a cue from kids and their selfys. Get close, and pose people. Ask them to scoot together, get on the other side of the table, and bend down so they look like a group that is together.

3. Talk to them, if people don't know each other, introduce yourself, then ask who they are.... then make a deal out of introducing them to the other people around them. This breaks the ice, and they will pose together, and actually may enjoy more of their time sitting with these people. It is amazing how the smiles change, after they do the simple task of introducing themselves to each other. I see this at weddings all the time, and people will just sit there quietly not speaking at a table, when I leave, they act like they've known each other for years.

3. Please, PLEASE, please, don't walk around the edge of the room, just trying to capture interesting images. What you will end up with, is a bunch of photos of the backs of people's heads. People turning their heads because they don't like guerilla photographers, sneaking photos of them when they feel unprepared.

I would much rather get 10-20 outstanding group photos, than 200 random shots of the backs of people's heads, or people shoving food in their mouths.

Cliff said this is basically photojournalism. I rarely disagree with Cliff, but this is something that I do, and teach regularly. Think about this. Would you rather someone handed you a stack of photos of people all close together, smiling right at you, even if it had some less than perfect lighting... or would you rather get a stack of photos from around the edge of the room, zoomed in, and just random shots of what is going on. Which photos would please you more? That's the goal of event photography. Give them something to remember.

Now, the shots if there is a dance floor, are more in line with photojournalism. Wedding formals, are a complete different beast all together.

You may be interested in the wedding photography section. There is a lot of overlap between weddings (especially the reception part) and event photography. We have a lot of people, with a LOT if experience, who just love to share info.

Good luck with the light scoop. It is a good choice. I made one out of black and white foam glued together, with florist wire embedded between the 2 layers, so I could bend it and it would hold it's shape.

Not because I couldn't afford a light scoop, I'm just a tinkerer at heart. I put the black and with together, so I could use it as either a black foamy thing, or a light scoop. It also looks more "finished" with the black on the back of it. (in my opinion)

Good luck, and hope you can share a few shots of what you did.
bk

Fran . . . which Lite-Scoop did you order? Lite Genius offers the Peri-Scoop (one of my favorites), and although it is an extra $30.00 over the price of the Lite-Scoop, it does totally eliminate the need for the bracket and flash cord. (a cost of $100-200.00)

In addition to the $$$ savings over a Lite-Scoop plus a bracket plus a flash cord, it weighs almost nothing and eliminates the un-balanced, very awkward combination of camera and heavy flash being far above the camera. With the Peri-Scoop, the flash remains in the hot shoe, and only the light is directed well above the camera lens.
The down side of the Peri-Scoop, like a bracket, is it is more troublesome to pack along with all the other equipment we really need.

Having said that, if you are not sure you really need a bracket, I would recommend the basic Lite-Scoop by itself, and after trying it you may not feel the need for the bracket after all.

The export dialogue allows you to restrict the size of the image. When I am emailing photos to friends and family that I know are going to be viewed on a computer/ipad etc. I usually restrict them to 2000 pixels on the longest axis and change to an 8 bit color space (sRGB in this instance). Both of these restrictions lead to a smaller file size to send. All of my images originate as 50 MPx Hasselblad, 40+ mPx Sony, or 36 MPix Nikon RAW files and as such are all far too large to send via email.

You can demonstrate the effects to yourself by exporting the same image several times varying the pixel dimensions each time. You can also vary the color space as long as they are at least in Adobe RGB to begin with.