Why do you need a wedding day timeline?
If you talk with any experienced wedding planners they will tell you a timeline is essential on your wedding day. Formats can vary but essentially creating a wedding day timeline is useful tool which tells you who will be where, and when, how much time you’ve allowed etc.
Download our Wedding Day Timeline/Schedule and use the SAMPLE timeline to create your own they way you would like your day to run.
I’ve mentioned before, not everything may go to plan, but by having a wedding day timeline you know if you need to make up some time, or if you can relax a little as you are ahead of schedule. What a great feeling!
Here are a couple of tips to consider and assist with creating your timeline:
Ceremony timings and beyond
A standard ceremony can usually take approx 30 minutes and some church wedding services can take closer to 60 minutes. After your ceremony we allow a few minutes of candid congratulations followed by your group photo and then your family photos. Generally we allow 30 minutes for this, depending on the size of your family and number of photos. Remeber we can also take photos with extended family during your reception.
For your Bridal location photos we’d love approx 1.5 hours and around sunset. Example if sunset is at 5:45pm the ideal time for your bridal portraits is from 4:45 – 6:00pm. We don’t want to miss out on this gorgeous light. We may not use all of this time, but if it is allocated, we don’t need to rush and you can take some time to take everything in, have a drink and a dance before you enter your reception.
Your wedding day timeline should be a guide outlining your day. This includes when your suppliers are arriving, when they are leaving, the time and duration of your ceremony, when sunset will be, and what time your reception starts and finishes… and everything else inbetween.
Speeches and your Reception
Your reception timeline is also important as your venue needs to keep timings on track for meals etc, and this is where your MC comes in. Select an MC who is comfortable in public speaking, although you really want a friend or family member to be your MC if they aren’t comfortable talking to a group of people, they may not be the right person for this important job. Your MC keeps the night on track, entertains your guests so they know what is next, and gets your formalities completed and your dancefloor open so the “party” can really begin.
When it comes to speeches, you may need to allow a little cushion time! But in saying this you can request your speakers to cap their speech to 3-5 minutes each (knowing secretly a couple of them may go a little longer). Depending on the number to speakers, allow approx 30 minutes.
So all that’s left for you to do is start creating and remember to share your run sheet with all your key vendors and suppliers. Yes, it might seem like a bit of work upfront, but the peace of mind it will provide is invaluable.
As an experienced Gold Coast wedding photographer, I have helped creating many wedding day timelines to meet everyone’s requirements, and this helps your day run smoothly. I want to capture the most of your day, I check when sunset is and know how much time I’ll need to capture all of your special moments.
