Planning a wedding is like putting together the biggest party of your life! You’ll want to create a timeline of events so you and your vendors know how the day will run. It’s likely that you’ve never had to plan a wedding before so I’ve put together some ideas to get you started.

LIST THE IMPORTANT PARTS OF THE DAY

Start with writing a list of all the important parts of the day and then put them into an order that you’d like to see things happen. Your list might look like this.

Hair and Makeup
Groom greets guests at the ceremony venue
Ceremony
Family Photos
Bridal photos
Reception entrance followed up opening speeches
Dinner
Cake Cutting
More speeches
Dessert
Sunset photos
First dance and party!

HAIR AND MAKEUP START TIME

Set a time that you need to be getting into your dress (usually 30 minutes before you need to leave) and then work backwards. Your hair and makeup artist will be able to suggest a start time based on how many people they need to do.

I’ll usually arrive 2 or 1.5 hours before the ceremony for preparation photos, this is always plenty of time for the bride and then 1 hour for the groom.

CEREMONY, BRIDAL PHOTOS & RECEPTION ENTRANCE

Your ceremony will likely only be 20-30 minutes long. Allow 10 minutes for guests to come up to you and congratulate you afterwards (I love this part for getting some candid photos of you and your guests). Then you can start your family photos, I usually allow 20-30 minutes for this.

You will want photos with your wedding party squad (bridesmaids, groomsmen, bridesmen, groomsgals, your besties etc!) This is when your photographer will want to set aside some time specifically for this part as it's when you'll get the best portraits, some call it a 'bridal shoot'. Often couples will ask to not be away from their guests for too long, I suggest 45 minutes to 1 hour for this part which is always plenty of time if we aren’t needing to travel far, keep in mind each photographer will have a different preference for this.

If you’re doing a reception entrance this is usually straight after bridal photos. Sometimes there is wiggle room here to add in a speech or two before dinner. You’ll need to set a time for dinner with your caterers but it’s usually around 6/6:30pm.

Following these guide lines your timeline might look like this

Ceremony 3pm
Family photos 3:30pm
Wedding party photos 4pm - 5pm (1 hour)
30 minutes wiggle room here incase family photos or the ceremony ran over etc
Reception Entrance 6pm
Speeches 6pm
Dinner 6:30pm

FIRST LOOK & LATER CEREMONY

If you want a later ceremony you could plan to do your bridal photos and a first look before the ceremony. This means you have more time to be with your guests after the ceremony. Your timeline might look like this

First look 2:30pm (if your photos are at a different location to the ceremony then you may want to start earlier at 2pm)
Wedding party photos 2:30pm
Ceremony 4pm
Family Photos 4:30pm
Reception entrance 5:30pm
Speeches 5:30pm
Dinner 6pm

RECEPTION

There are so many ways to run your reception. For our wedding we didn’t have an entrance, we started off with 3 speeches before dinner and then 2 more after dinner. We then started the party with our first dance. For dessert, we cut the cake and then had a buffet/help yourself to cake rather than a sit-down dessert setting. I wanted to keep the formalities as short as possible so I asked for speeches to be kept to 5 minutes. Splitting up the speeches was one of the best things we did, it kept it entertaining and everyone had a chance to grab another drink in between.