There is nothing worse than being stressed on your wedding day. There are so many things that are coming at you (the bride) at once and a million different little details going through your head the last thing you want to worry about is being late for your own wedding.
Okay… that probably won’t happen, but having a timeline will let someone else worry about it for you. In my bride’s case, I usually handle the day of wedding timeline and stress of keeping everyone on tract! A well thought out timeline will help keep things calm and enjoyable for everyone.
If you hired a wedding planner/coordinator this will be a pretty easy task for you, but if you are doing this on your own I wanted to share a few tips for you to think about when creating your wedding day timeline.
**Before we start the list… I think it is SUPER important to remember that every wedding day is different and unique. Each bride and groom will have parts of the wedding day that mean more to them than other couples. IF bridal party pictures are important to you, then make sure you allow more time to have fun with your bridal party and get the pictures that you want or if you want to travel to a different location to do your bride and groom portraits then make sure you not only allow that travel time, but enough time to get the pictures that you want. I also want to take a minute to mention that this is YOUR wedding. Do your day the way you want to do it!!**
Alright, so grab a pen, take your notes and let’s work through the timeline together!
STEP 1— START WITH THE TIMES THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW
I suggest starting backwards. Usually you already know the start time for the ceremony and the time you have to be out of the venue. I always suggest to my bride and grooms to give yourself 45 minutes to an hour before the wedding to be in your rooms and put away. This allows for a couple of things:
Keep you hidden from your guest seeing you before the ceremony.
Gives your time to relax, fix wild hairs, reapply makeup, make readjustments, etc.
If any photo ops were missed earlier in the day due to time restraints, we have an hour to go back and get photos of those things. This hour also allows the photographers/videographers to get set up for the ceremony, shoot photos of an empty reception space and photos of guest arriving.
STEP 2- DECIDE ON THE EVENTS OF THE DAY
Like I mentioned earlier … your wedding is YOUR wedding, so decide on what is important to you. In my opinion, deciding if you want to do a first look or not is the biggest factor in wedding day timelines. If you do a first look then a lot of the pictures can be done before the ceremony and allow you to get to the reception much sooner. If you don’t do a first look, then you will need to allow more time after the ceremony to capture all the family photos plus bridal party photos plus bride and groom portraits.
Other common events of the day:
First look with your dad? Grandma? Bridesmaids?
Bride and Groom portraits? Start 15-20 minutes before Google says sunset will happen to allow for walking time, interruptions, etc.
Any specific photos the bridal party wants to do that might take time to coordinate? (For example, bridal party taking shots together, moving a large group of people to various locations, etc.)
STEP 3- TALK WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER AND VENDORS
Alight… I am not saying this just because I am a photographer, buuuuuutttttt…. your photographer goes to and sees a LOT of weddings. They have experience making timelines and ideas on what works and what might be more difficult to accomplish, what takes more time, how long to allow for sections of your day, etc.
Also, visit with your officiant about how long the ceremony will be. I typically suggest adding about 10-15 minutes to what you think the ceremony will be. This allows a little buffer time if something was to take longer like technical difficulties, etc.
If you do a run through of your hair and make-up, make sure to time how long it takes from start to finish. This will give you a good estimate on how much time to allow on your wedding day. And, maybe round up to the nearest hour or half hour just in case.
STEP 4- ALLOW FOR MORE TIME
I typically over shoot the time for each section of the wedding by 5-10 minutes. This allows for any bad thing that could happen— a lost groomsmen, crying flower girl, forgotten bridesmaid bouquets, etc. Any build up of extra time gives the bride and groom more time to hang out and relax before the ceremony with ZERO rush. Things also seem to take more time on wedding days or take longer than you might expect. The most common thing to run late is getting in the dress. Not only do you have to get into a big dress, but you have to do undergarments, garter, shoes, taping things down (if needed), putting on your vail… all those things will add a lot of time.
STEP 5- SHARE YOUR TIMELINE WITH OTHERS
After you have finished your timeline and you are happy with it, make sure to share it with your vendors, your bridal party, parents, etc. I make copies of the timeline and leave at least three copies in the bridal suite and grooms suite for everyone to reference with the hopes that everyone will be on familiar with the timeline, help keep things on track and overall just to know we are on a time budget!
Most importantly remember… wedding days are NOT perfect. There are a lot of people working together to make one event, so everything may not go according to plan, but that is okay! The most important thing is that you have vendors that you trust 100% and that you are married to your love at the end of the day. The rest will fall into place!
