There are multiple aspects to a wedding day, and if we’re honest, even the best made timeline often gets thrown off. Today I’m sharing the five biggest factors when it comes to building your wedding timeline.
What time of year is your wedding?
When sunset, and consequently golden hour, occurs is the main anchor point for when I build a timeline. A good rule of thumb is to have your ceremony begin two hours prior to sunset; this ensures you have plenty of time for all of your portraits afterwards, even if your ceremony runs a little late. If you plan on having a ceremony longer than 30 minutes, I would plan to start sooner.
What is your venue location like?
The topography of your venue affects when sunset actually happens. If your venue is in a valley or heavily-treed, expect the light to act like sunset happens sooner. This means we would want either a) ceremony to happen more than two hours ahead of sunset or b) do more (or all if possible) portraits prior to the ceremony.
Are you having a First Look?
First Looks are great for multiple reasons, like reducing most of your portraits after the ceremony. When having a First Look, you need to be ready about an hour to an hour and a half sooner than you would without. This essentially gets the “actual” wedding day started sooner because you have to be ready earlier, but you also get to enjoy your party faster too!
Don’t know what a First Look is? Check out this blog post
Are you doing a controlled or final exit?
You can learn all about the benefits of a Controlled Exit here. When it comes to your timeline, you need to plan all the main receptions events to occur prior to your controlled exit (including some open dancing), as your photographer will generally leave soon after the exit. If having your photographers capture your final exit, you’ll need more coverage time or know they’ll likely won’t be present earlier in the day to capture your details and bridal prep.
How do you want your wedding day to feel?
Do you want to feel like you have plenty of breathing time to enjoy your day at a relaxed pace? Do you want to be present at cocktail hour with your guests? Do you want a pocket of time to spend alone with your new spouse? Then you need to make sure your timeline has plenty of spacing (and then some) between events. ALWAYS pad your timeline with 5-15 minutes here and there to allow for some wiggle room.
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