How to Create the Perfect Wedding Day Timeline
The absolute best light for photography, that romantic golden glow, occurs within the two hours before sunset. By all means, though, that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to get great photos throughout your wedding day! With a little careful crafting, creating the perfect wedding day timeline to capture your day in the best light is totally possible.
First Look?
The biggest factor in creating the perfect wedding day timeline is whether or not the two of you will see each other before the ceremony. This decision impacts whether formal photos will be before or after the ceremony, and therefore what time is best for your ceremony to begin! If you do a First Look, most – if not all – of your formals can be before the ceremony, allowing you to have a later start time.
Dinner
Dinnertime will obviously also affect the timeline. You’ll want to consider when your guests will want to be eating, and whether you’re having a cocktail hour with appetizers that will tide people over until dinner.
Coverage
How many hours you’ve booked your photographer/videographer for will also heavily impact your timeline! You might not care if certain parts of the reception are captured (the third hour of guests drinking and dancing might get a little sloppy!) so you can plan to have certain events after coverage ends, or try to fit every last event in.
It Takes Time
A lot of the trick to creating the perfect wedding day timeline is knowing how long each part will take. Whether you see each other before the ceremony with a formal First Look or do all the formal photos afterward, photographers typically try to set aside the same amount of time for them in the timeline. Personally, I try to allot about two hours for all the wedding party, couples photos, and family photos – with an extra 15 to 30 minutes of portrait time one-on-one with the two of you at sunset!
Along the same lines, it’s important to allow for enough time to capture getting ready and all the little details, if you want those things documented by your photographer/videographer. I like to have at least 20 minutes with the little details – those earrings, invitation suites, shoes, and dress shots. From there it’s ideal to have about an hour and a half for the getting ready process. These times can obviously fluctuate according to the individual couple and their day – and the photographer capturing it!
To Recap
Let’s say you’ve decided to do a First Look, and the sun sets at 8pm. How would I create the perfect wedding day timeline around that information? I would recommend having your ceremony at 5:30 or 6pm. The light will be gorgeous as the two of you get married, and there’s still going to be great light into your reception (and room for me to get those portraits with the two of you at sunset!) Your formal photos should always be done at least 30 minutes before ceremony, so let’s say 5:00pm photos are done and you’ll be tucked away. Two hours for formals means you’ll start at 3:00pm, which puts coverage starting by at least 1pm!
Depending on the amount of coverage, you can add onto your getting ready time, or add more reception coverage. With a 6:00pm dinner time, you could do toasts at 6:30 (while guests finish eating), first dance at 7:00, sunset photos at 7:30, any games or other fun events you’re doing after that, and still get those fun candid dance floor photos before the coverage ends at 9 or 10!