Bright sun, backgrounds, high shutter speeds, fill flash, etc. can make it difficult to decide what to do. You've got to take one thing at a time. What DOF? Is it moving? Is the light balanced? Do I need to pop off a flash? Answers to each of these questions narrows your settings and equipment down to a manageable and subjective range of values.
For this shot, I knew I needed a deep DOF, and had it at f/11, based on my DOF chart in my camera bag (yes, i carry a few!). But I was getting shutter speeds that were still pretty high, and since it 11:30 AM, the sun was high in the sky and causing some ugly shadows on their faces. To get the shutter down to a reasonable speed (at or below 1/250 max sync) I used a 4 stop (1.2) ND filter. The background was still a little bright, so I stopped down to f/14. This is the result:
This might seem like a lot of asking and answering, but after a while, you make these progressive choices instinctively and fast enough that it doesn't slow you down.