6 Tips To Help You Plan Your Wedding Day Timeline.

As a bride or groom, your wedding day is one of the most important events of your life, and planning a good wedding day timeline is essential for a smooth, enjoyable, and stress-free day.

Even for smaller weddings, your day is usually filled with multiple special moments from getting ready, to your ceremony, reception, plus any other elements you have decided to include within your wedding.

Without a well-organized timeline, it's easy for things to feel rushed, overwhelming, or for elements to fall behind schedule.

We don’t want that, so here are 6 tips to help you plan a wedding day timeline to ensure success!

1. Plan Your Prep Time Properly.

Start the day off right by planning your prep time properly, this is the first hurdle of the day and it is super important to get the timings right.

Key goal is to make sure everyone is ready at least 1 hour before the wedding ceremony starts, or before you have to travel to the ceremony venue.

If you have a big bridal party, plan to be ready closer to 2 hours before as there is a higher risk of delays with hair and make-up.

Groom & groomsmen prep usually takes 30 minutes – 1 hour per person.

Less time is typically required for the guys and usually there aren’t any venders providing hair and make-up services, plus let’s face it overall there is often less to do.

But, if you are getting specialists in to help get the guys looking their best, chat with your vender to plan specific timings.

Bridal prep usually takes 1 hour 30 minutes – 2 hours.

Bridesmaid prep usually takes 1 hour – 1 hour 30 minutes per person.

For the bridal party I also highly recommend doing a trial hair and make-up session, not only so you have the final look prepared for the big day, but you can work out accurate timings.

This is applicable whether doing your own hair and make-up or getting in venders.

For large bridal parties consider getting in multiple venders so that a couple of your bridesmaids can be getting dolled up at the same time. This can sometimes be essential for ceremonies scheduled earlier in the day.

And if you’re the bride, it’s tempting to leave getting hair and makeup done till last, but don’t! You’re the most important person and take the longest (usually) to get ready.

Finally, once you have a plan for your prep, stick to it.

I know that doesn’t sound fun, but if you stick to the schedule, it means you can enjoy getting ready with your favourite people without being all flustered.

Don’t think you have lots of time and then end up rushing to finish your look and get your outfit on last minute. I promise, this is not so fun.

Plus, by being ready an hour or more before the ceremony, you get to chill, take photos, and get mentally ready for the day.

2. Consider The Timings Surrounding Your Ceremony.

So, you will be able to work out the duration of the ceremony with your celebrant quite easily and depending on the kind of service you are having these will typically take between 15 – 40 minutes. But don’t get fooled by just planning in time for the actual ceremony into your timeline, there are elements before and after to consider.

Before the ceremony, your grooms party or chosen ushers should arrive around 45 minutes before it’s due to start. Guests typically arrive 30 minutes beforehand.

Your exact timings for arriving at the venue may vary depending on if you are having a traditional or alternative wedding, but in the end, everyone should be there at least 10-15 minutes before the ceremony starts.

After the ceremony include time for your exit if you have anything special planned such as confetti etc. and allow for 20-30 minutes to greet all your guests. 

Top tip, if your ceremony venue has super limited parking, consider supplying transport for your guests (for example a bus), to make it less stressful for your guests and so your ceremony can start on time with everyone present.

Finally, think about the time of day you want to have your ceremony, this will greatly impact the overall timeline of your wedding day.

3. Calculate And Create Time For Couple And Group Portraits.

So I will admit, this is a big one for me personally as a wedding photographer.

Although this means planning time away from your festivities, it is so worth creating enough time in your timeline for this section of the day.

It is easy to not realise how much time is required for your couple portraits or for your group portraits so here is a little guide to timings.

Couple Portraits allow 40 minutes – 1 hour.

If we are heading to several surrounding locations for your couple portrait session it may take closer to an hour.

Allowing this time for couple ensures that you get the photographs you will cherish for a lifetime. This is also an opportunity for you to take a break and spend some quiet time with your loved one amongst the excitement of the wedding day and just cherish being newly married.

Group Portraits allow 3 minutes per group.

Often it is easier to allow an average of 3 minute per group photograph as this allows a little time organising people and getting everyone together.

I would also recommend adding on an extra 5 minutes to total time for wiggle room in your schedule.

So as an example, if you do have 5 group portraits planned, allow 20 minutes to capture them in total.

Generally I would advise keeping your number of group portraits to a minimum, maxing out at 10 group photographs. This should cover all of your combinations of people closest to you but if it doesn’t that is for you to ultimately decide.

And, to help this process to go smoothly, I recommend choosing a member of the wedding party that is responsible for gathering everyone together for each photo.

4. Set Time Restrictions For Speeches.

Let’s talk speeches, if you are having them there are a couple reasons why it’s a good idea to set time restrictions.

A. Helps you accurately plan your wedding day timeline.
B. Prevents your loved ones rambling for 40 minutes.
Although they may feel like they have a lot to say, if you have several speeches this section becomes a major section of time. Plus, the unfortunate truth is that you and your guests will likely get bored or distracted, so won’t fully appreciate what is said in the speeches. Overall, you want to be able to enjoy, remember and cherish what they say.

5. Win With Communicating.

For all your different suppliers, venders and people taking an active role in your wedding, it is super to communicate with them. So yes, this also includes your wedding photographer!

Understand how much time each element of your day takes, who is involved and what must be done to make that section a success.

Ultimately make sure everyone knows the timeline for your day and that the timeline allows everyone time to get their job done. The risk of problems occurring or delays happening decrease with good communication.

6. Create Wiggle Room In Your Wedding Timeline For A Stress Free Day.

Finally, throughout your whole day create wiggle room in your wedding timeline as this will make the difference in creating an enjoyable and stress-free wedding day. So, if any niggly issues arise, or there is a delay, there is no sweat because you have spare time.

Those are 6 tips to help you plan a wedding day timeline, hope you have found this helpful.