Its a good idea to think of a timeline for your wedding well in advance of your wedding day. If you don’t have a timeline, vendors are lost and you can lose track of time and before you know it, most of your guests have left and you havent cut the cake or pulled out the sparklers.
The timeline I will provide is just a SUGGESTED timeline to use, of course you can alter it to fit your needs because it is your wedding day and what may work for you may not work for other brides.
Ceremony Timeline:
3:00 – bride & groom’s first look + portraits
3:30 – bridal party portraits (if there is no first look, then portraits of either side of bridal party)
4:00 – family portraits
4:30 – bridal party freshens make up and hair
5:00 – ceremony
5:30 – cocktail hour (if you do your portraits before the ceremony you can enjoy your cocktail hour with your guests or take a few more portraits; if not allow an hour for final portraits)
6:30 – guests are guided to reception hall
Reception Timeline:
6:45 – bridal party entrance + first dance
7:00 – dinner (allow your guests to eat for about 45 minutes so they may enjoy the food)
7:45 – father/ daughter dance, mother/son dance
8:00 – open dancing
9:00 – cake cutting + more open dancing (cake cutting at this time allows for older ones to wrap up their day but still enjoy the cake)
Think ahead of time if you’d like more photos of you and your bridal party getting ready or reception photos. Make sure to plan in time for hair, make-up, eating lunch, transportation, getting into your dress (about 30 minutes) and hang-out time. It’s better to plan in more time than not enough. Usually each thing takes longer than you expect and you also need to leave room for the unexpected. So make sure you start early! Giving more time also allows you to do more with your bridesmaids and mother to enjoy your day. It goes fast so you’ll want to be able to breath and take in whats about to happen. This also allows for us to get some great photos of the emotions of the day.
If you have any questions, please visit www.ashleyyvonnephotography.com and submit a form under the Contact tab or email [email protected]. Thanks for visiting!
