Building a Wedding Day Timeline
A wedding day is a joyous celebration for the couple and their families. But it is also a major event.
A wedding takes months to plan with a team of vendors in order to bring the client’s vision to life. At the center of this plan, is creating the perfect wedding timeline.
While some couples require a multi-day event timeline (welcome party, rehearsal dinner, day of, goodbye brunch, etc.), the basic timeline is for the wedding day itself.
Starting to build your timeline can be the hardest part. Here are some tips to help you start gathering important information so you can be ready to put together a draft of your ideal timeline.
Please note, if you are using a full service planner they typically help with this or do it all for you depending on their service offerings!
Establish your ceremony start time. This is the reason for the day right? Confirm your ideal ceremony start time. Usually this is impacted by the time of year (for lighting reasons) and your venue rules. If you are getting married at one location and hosting a reception at another, the ceremony venue may have strict guidelines on when you can enter and when you must be gone. Even if they are all at the same venue, there may be a room flip to consider as well for the time.
Confirm when you have to be done at your reception venue. Your venue will give you a time for last call and a time when you need to clear the venue so their staff can begin tear down. This will allow you to easily establish your reception end time for the night. Of course you can always decide to shut down earlier.
Establish your desired time to start cocktail hour and dinner. Some couples have an ideal time they want to serve dinner for their guests (and when they will be hungry themselves). Things to consider before dinner is served would be the cocktail hour length, grand entrances into the reception, welcome speeches or blessings, formalities like cake cutting or first dances can be done before dinner as well if you’d like.
Coordinate with your beauty team (hair and makeup) how long it will take for them to complete their services. Your beauty team will need to know the general styles you are wanting for hair and makeup, how many will be needing services (bridal party, moms, flower girls, etc.), and where they will be doing their services. They should be able to give you an estimated time and you can then decide how early you want to start in order to be ready.
Confirm the hours of coverage you purchased from all your vendors but especially- planner, photographer, videographer and your DJ. Some vendors have collections with set maximum hours of coverage so double check all your contracts and confirm with them prior to finalizing your timeline. If you have shorter time coverage with photo and video you may consider having them arrive after the beauty team is finishing up (less getting ready shots) so they can get quick detail shots and then start with the wedding party photos and this should give you enough hours to carry you into the reception formalities before they need to depart.
Decide if you are doing a first look or not. You either love them or you hate them! No matter what you decide, just know that doing a first look or not impacts the timeline. If you decide to do a first look before the ceremony, you will be able to knock out your couples portraits and wedding party photographs before the ceremony. This gives you more time to take family photographs following the ceremony and you can do more wedding party photographs or sunset couple photographs if you want. If you want to save the big reaction for the walk down the aisle and not do a first look, no problem! Just plan for couples portraits, wedding party, and family photographs all after the ceremony. In cases like this, it might be best to allot more time to cocktail hour so you can get all the pictures you want before your reception begins.
Plan with your photographer and videographer on how much time they need for wedding party shots, couples portraits, family photographs, and any first looks. They will need to know about any desired first looks (first look with bridal party, parents, spouse, etc.), if you want to shoot at multiple locations (they need to consider travel time), and any other formalities you want captured (giving gifts, reading letters from each other, a visit from your four legged friend, etc.), and how many members are in your bridal party and how many family members you want to take photographs with.
Start your first draft of your timeline using all of this information and then meet with each of your vendors to finalize the details! It does not have to be perfect, you can make adjustments as you go. You should now know when you need to start hair and makeup, when your photographers and videographers will arrive, what photo and video moments you want to take before the ceremony (and where), when your ceremony will begin and end, what photo and vide moments that you want post ceremony, when cocktail hour will be, when dinner will be served, and when the reception will end.
Planning a wedding takes a village. This is why it is so important to hire the best wedding pros that will help you do all this work.
Happy Planning!!
