Ahead Of Schedule: Wedding Day Timeline Planning Tips
A well-thought out timeline is so incredibly important on your wedding day. There are many moving pieces and even being just 30 minutes behind can play a part in your cocktail hour being cut short, your caterer’s food being served cold, or even the dance floor being open for a fraction of the originally planned time [BIG no!].
Building a wedding timeline may be one of the easiest and hardest parts of planning for your wedding day. If you’ve never planned a wedding before, you may not be sure how much time to allow for each event throughout the day. You want the day to go so smooth without a chance of a delayed timeline.
There will always be at least one unplanned situation that arises on the day of your wedding so you need to be sure to account for this. When building timelines, I always allow for a little bit of buffer time. This allows for the relaxed atmosphere while operating on a “plan for the worst, hope for the best” basis.
Let’s talk about our top 7 tips for your wedding day timeline - do’s and don’ts, extra time allowance, and flow of events to ensure a seamless day.
photo via Natalie Cacioppo Photography
Getting Ready
Your hair and make-up stylists will know about how long it takes to complete their services. Always allow for an extra half hour to hour buffer for hair and make-up at the end. This will give you a little extra time if adjustments need to be made and if everything goes perfectly, you’ll have some time to spend with your girlies sipping mimosas and getting excited for your wedding day.
Photos
Photos typically go pretty quick. Your photographer will know about how long it takes for them to complete their job (they are the artist behind the lens). If you are going off-site, include a small buffer to account for any traffic or delays on getting people on and off your transportation and back to your wedding location. We don’t want you late for your own wedding ceremony!
Ceremony
If you aren’t getting married in a church, your ceremony is likely only going to be about 15 minutes. I always allow for a 30-minute block on the timeline for ceremony. This allows us to start the ceremony a little bit late for those guests who are never on time [c’mon, we all know those people]. I prefer to hold off on sending the bridal party down the aisle until I don’t see additional guests arriving to your venue.
If you are getting married in a church, I would allow for at least an hour and a half to two hours for your ceremony. Church ceremonies do typically last quite a bit longer than an officiated ceremony outside of the church. This gives plenty of time for your processional, mass, ceremony, and recessional as well as a buffer for transportation from the church to your cocktail hour. Remember; guests do tend to mingle when they are seeing family and friends for the first time in a while - be sure to account for this.
Cocktail Hour
You will be off taking photos while your cocktail hour is taking place. Again, photos generally go pretty quick and there is a chance you may be able to join your guests at cocktail hour if you so desire (if you are doing your family photos after the ceremony, on-site). I can’t speak for others, but depending on the size of your wedding, I may start to direct guests into the reception space anywhere from 10-20 minutes prior to your reception start time. It does take time to rally hundreds of people and give them time to find their seats while still keeping the timeline on track. Be sure to take this into consideration when planning your timeline.
Introductions and Events
Introductions generally go pretty quick, however, you may plan to go directly into your cake cutting and first dances immediately following the ceremony. As a rule, I say 30 minutes is the max from introductions to dinner service. By this time of the day, your guests are probably getting pretty hungry so you don’t want to keep them waiting too long.
Perhaps you’d like to do toasts and prayer before dinner. When asking your dad, best man or maid of honor to give a toast, ask them to keep it within a 3-5 minute window. Toasts can sometimes go on for 10+ minutes and if you have more than one person toasting, this can get pretty messy.
Dinner Service
Buffet-Style can take much longer to feed your guests than a plated meal or family style dinner. Allow for at least one hour to feed all of your guests. If you are planning to do speeches after dinner, you may have guests that are still finishing up their dinner but at least everyone will be seated.
Many times, the bar will close during dinner services. This stops your guests from lining up at the bar when we are trying to start introductions and to keep everyone seated prior to dinner. The bar may open up during the dinner hour and you can count on guests starting to line up again. If you’d like to do your speeches, cake cutting, etc. while people are still seated, the best time to do that is prior to dinner.
Miscellaneous
After dinner service, you can be a little more lenient on your timeline. Most of the major events of the day have already taken place and guests are fed and ready to celebrate. You may have planned for sunset photos or a sparkler exit. The timing of this will really depend on weather and the sun. If you are doing a bouquet toss, you can certainly place that on your timeline but again, this will be much more laid back than earlier in the day.
Your wedding planner or coordinator will help you time out all of these events. They know what works and what doesn’t and can make suggestions as to when to plan for certain events. If you are not hiring a wedding planner or wedding coordinator, we hope this list helps you create a seamless flow of events for your wedding day.
photo via Reese and Renee Photography
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