WEDDING HINTS & TIPS | CREATING THE PERFECT WEDDING DAY TIMELINE
Creating A Wedding Day Timeline
Planning a Wedding day can be both exciting and overwhelming, but with the right timeline, you can ensure that your wedding day is stress-free and enjoyable for everyone. Crafting a wedding day timeline doesn’t need to take long or be complicated. Still, it should include consideration of the timings, from getting ready in the morning, to making sure the ceremony and reception run smoothly to the time that the drunk dancing will start.
Hopefully, these tips and tricks will help you craft the perfect wedding day timeline.
Identify The Key Moments Of Your Wedding Day
There are many moments or events that happen on a wedding day, but not every couple will be interested in having these events at their wedding.
Not every couple wants to do a first dance or a cake cut, and plenty of couples do not want to put people through having to do a speech.
For each key event, there will be moments or events that happen within a key event; for example, you will have the wedding ceremony down as a key event (obvs!), but within the wedding ceremony, there will be lots of little moments, what’s the order that people will be walking down the aisle? Will it be Bridesmaids first? Will they go in pairs or down individually? Where are they going to sit?
All these little moments within key events will need sorting and talking through before the wedding, but for the purpose of creating a wedding day timeline, I suggest you stick to the main headings and not drill too far into the details, as you will 100% get lost.
I think that the main events that you need to be considering are, getting ready, hair and make-up, dress going on, travel times to the venue, guests arrivals, ceremony time length, confetti, drinks reception, games or entertainments, wedding breakfast, speeches, evening entertainment or games, time for evening guests arrivals, first dance, cake cut, Dj or Live band, fireworks, sparklers, evening food, kicking out time.
The events or moments that are important to you should be jotted down ready for the next part of the wedding day timeline and that’s establishing the order that you want these events to happen on your wedding day.
Establish The Order Of Events
Once you have identified the key moments of your wedding day, you can then begin to sketch out a rough draft of the order of events. Start thinking and asking yourselves questions such as, “Do we want to get ready together or do it separately?”, “What will be the order of the ceremony?”, “Do we want to have something for people to do during the drinks reception?”.
Begin to jot down some notes and create a timeline that suits what you want for your wedding.
Remember, this is a draft and not a concrete timeline, so you can adjust it and make changes as needed. With your rough draft, you can begin to figure out how long each thing will take, which will help you with the next tip.
Set The Timeline For Each Event
Once you have the rough order, you can begin to identify the timeline for each event.
When setting the timeline, there are a few tips and tricks to remember. First, don’t try to squeeze in too many events.
It’s important to give yourself enough time to enjoy the day and not to feel rushed; keep in mind that the timeline is an estimate. Things may take longer or shorter than expected, but that’s all part of the fun of a wedding!
Finally, don’t forget about the travel time between each event.
This often gets overlooked but will be essential to keep in mind as you begin to finalize your timeline.
Suppose, for example, the ceremony is at 3 pm in one location, and your reception is at a different venue; you will not only want to account for the travel time between the two locations, but you might also have to think about how people will travel to the reception venue.
The Only Two Fixed Times On Your Wedding Day - Ceremony and Food
You will need to consider the timing of the wedding ceremony and wedding breakfast as all other things on your wedding day will revolve around these two timings.
The wedding ceremony is your first fixed time on your wedding day, yes, for some people it's tradition to make people wait and be fashionably late, but don't push it!
If you are having a civil wedding ceremony, you will often find that you will be one of many couples the registrars will be marrying on your wedding day; it may be that you are getting married in a registry office, and there will be other weddings booked in after you, being too late in these circumstances might lead to you having to wait till the end of the day to get married or in extreme cases, you might not be able to get married.. which nearly happened late in 2022..
The timing of the food is crucial to the venue, and they will be under strict timings to make sure the food is ready for the agreed time.
Any activities, games or speeches will all need to be finished for a specific time as the venue will want/need to get the food served.
I do have a blog post on the speeches timing - https://saywellhq.co.uk/blog/wedding-photography-speeches-hints-and-tips
Plan The Timeline For Any Formal Photographs
Couples who book me to be their wedding photographer will often ask for a few formal photographs; these are often close family photographs.
I have a blog post dedicated to Stress Free Family Formals and how I do them - https://saywellhq.co.uk/blog/stress-free-wedding-group-shots-and-family-formals
I always say to my couples that they should be fluid for when we should look to do the family formals.
Some wedding photographers will want to take you away and do the formals as soon as the wedding ceremony is done.
But, this is not how I would recommend they be done. I believe that you should spend time with your family and friends straight after the ceremony, enjoy a few drinks and maybe some canapes.
I recommend doing any formal family photography just before you are due in for the start of the wedding breakfast.
However, you may find that if you have a videographer, they will have different needs and may well want to get their coverage of the family formals much earlier in the drinks reception time.
It maybe helpful, if you have a photographer and a videographer, to set time aside and make it part of your wedding day timeline.
Plan The Timeline For Other Wedding Activities
Depending on the time of your wedding ceremony and your wedding breakfast, it might be worthwhile giving your wedding guests something to do or have something entertaining for people to watch.
Once you have a rough wedding timeline, you will be able to see where the gaps are and if you need to add in something for people, remember that you can have some quiet time on a wedding, typically the time between the end of the wedding breakfast and the start of the evening fun is a good time to let people relax, you don’t need to provide people with loads to do at this point in the day, they have just had their food and will more than likely be happy to just sit down and take the weight off.
I have seen some amazing things to entertain people on a wedding day, and they don’t need to break the bank. Easy wins for keeping people entertained are garden games, caricaturist, back ground musicians, magicians, mind readers, bingo (one of my big favourites), bouncy castle, karaoke, photo booths. There are plenty of options, but make sure, if you are booking things for your guests to do, your guests will actually enjoy it!
Shi+ Happens
The best-laid plans often go awry, this is true for weddings as much as it is for anything else in life.
When compiling your wedding day timeline, it's best to look at the different events you have happening on the day and see if you can identify some high level pinch points.
Let's say you are getting married in one place and then having to get to another location to have the wedding reception.
It may make sense to put on transport for people so that everyone can travel together, which will help keep to some of the days timings.
It may be that you can't put transport on for people and the wedding guests will be asked to make their own way to the reception, it will be worth factoring in some additional travel time for people to get to the wedding reception venue.
You Need A Plan B (for some stuff)
I think it’s essential to create a plan B for some things on your wedding day, you won't be able to have a plan B for every eventuality but for the big stuff, you can.
If you are having a summer wedding and are planning on being married outdoors, it's worth having a plan B should the weather be bad.
Venues will often have an indoor space that can be quickly turned around so the wedding ceremony can still take place; this also works for the wedding activities you have planned; maybe you have garden games or some other entertainment for people on the day, an alternative plan for these would be good to have.
There will be things, however, that you can have no plan B for, such as the venue having a powercut and not being able to get the food ready on time (I've had that once), the Pizza truck breaking down on the way to the wedding reception (had that), the wedding car going to the wrong venue to pick the bride up to drive her to the wedding ceremony and ending up being 45 minutes late (had that).
But for some things on a wedding day, have a plan B.
Delegate Tasks
I bang on about delegating on many of my wedding hints and tips blog posts and videos.
A wedding day cannot run smoothly without help, it just doesn't happen, but people make the mistake of assuming that people will do things; again it doesn't just happen.
Your Ushers and, to some extent, the Bridesmaids are there to help, it's mainly the Ushers, but I've met some Bridesmaids who love to get involved.
It's essential that you delegate to people, so they can help with guiding wedding guests to where they need to go when they arrive at the wedding; people need to be told which side of the aisle you want people to sit, you need people to hand out confetti, to round up families if you want to have some formal photographs; see what I mean, there are plenty of times on a wedding day where a little bit of help can go a long way.
Remember, delegate.
Finishing Your Wedding Day Timeline
Once you have finished creating your wedding day timeline, take a moment to reflect on what you have created.
Is everything in the timeline necessary?
Are there things that can be cut out?
Are there items that can be added?
These are all important questions to ask yourself as you finalize your timeline; you want to ensure your timeline is workable and realistic.
It’s also important to share your timeline with your wedding suppliers before the wedding day; they will want to know what is expected of them and when, so they can prepare for the big day.
If you are working with me as your wedding photographer, I always ask for a rough timing schedule around six weeks before the wedding so we can chat through things on our final pre-wedding catchup.
Some wedding suppliers (like hair and make-up) will have their ideas of when things need to be done on the morning of the wedding and also the running order of when each person is due to have their hair and make-up done; this will often be talked through in detail a few weeks before the wedding, usually when you have you pre-wedding makeup test.
I hope these hints and tips found in this blog post will be helpful in helping you create your wedding day timeline that is both workable and realistic. With the right amount of time allotted to each event, you can be sure that your special day runs smoothly and is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved.
WEDDING DAY TIMELINE EXAMPLES
Below you will find three examples of a typical wedding day timeline, you will find one for the “ceremony and reception being in two different locations”, “ceremony and reception at the same venue but getting ready elsewhere” and finally, “ceremony and wedding reception at the same venue and getting ready at the venue”.
I have also assumed a few things, a 1pm ceremony, a civil ceremony (30 minutes long), any travel is 30 minutes, a few people getting ready on the morning of the wedding, standard venue timings of food, speeches, drinks reception, cake cut, first dance and any formal photographs will be taken during the drinks reception.
Feel free to ‘right click’ and download any of these example wedding day timelines.
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