Wedding Day Timeline: From Getting Ready to Celebrating Love
Your wedding day is a whirlwind of excitement, anticipation, and love. There is so much to plan and pack into one day. Here at Your Dream Beach Wedding, we handle all the planning and ensure everything runs seamlessly and stress-free. In order to do this, it's essential to have a well-planned wedding timeline in place. From getting ready with your bridal party to saying "I do" and celebrating with loved ones, below is a breakdown of a typical wedding day timeline. However, please know that this is just a suggested guideline.
The first part of your wedding day is usually categorized as getting ready. However, it isn’t enough to just say, we will start getting ready at 8:00am. There needs to be a detailed timeline that includes who is getting ready and when, when photographers will arrive, if there will be a bridesmaids or family first look with the bride, and everything else to ensure there is enough time before the wedding ceremony. To figure out your wedding day timeline, it is best to have your wedding ceremony time set, and work backwards from that. For example, if your wedding ceremony starts at 5:30 pm, you would work backwards from there and fill in the timeline depending on what events you want to include.
Things To Consider When Planning Your Wedding Day Timeline Pre-Ceremony:
You want to schedule food delivery! You need to eat and stay hydrated so make sure you schedule a brunch with your girls or lunch delivery for the guys so no one is hungry going into the wedding ceremony.
Hair and makeup usually takes 60-90 minutes for the bride and 30-45 minutes for each member of the wedding party and parents.
Schedule your photographer to arrive with enough time to capture your wedding details, flatlays, and relaxed getting ready portraits.
Remember to savor this moment with your bridal party. Brides, enjoy some bonding time with your bridesmaids while getting dressed, getting the finishing touches, and bridal party photos taken. Grooms, relax with your groomsmen as you get ready for the ceremony and get a few photos, too.
If you and your partner are sharing a first look before the ceremony, typically wedding portraits, family portraits, and wedding party portraits would follow that moment. You would want to allot at least 2 hours for that, as well as any travel time.
Wedding Ceremony
Now that you’ve worked backwards from the ceremony, it’s time for the ceremony to start! Exchange vows and rings in front of your family and friends.
Enjoy the magic of this specialmoment as you officially become married. From here the timeline flows a little easier. The main factor that will affect your post wedding ceremony timeline is whether you took wedding portraits before the ceremony. If you did, you will not need to schedule as much time after the ceremony - maybe just a quick stroll at sunset during the golden hour. You might also want to take photos around the venue, before heading to the cocktail hour to enjoy a drink and relax with your guests before the wedding reception begins.
After cocktail hour is over, the reception festivities officially kick-off! You can see my guide to wedding receptions and the typical order of events in this blog here (one below I wrote). You can find more information and check out all our wedding packages here.
Here is an example of a wedding timeline with the ceremony starting at 6 pm. Move your timeline accordingly to your ceremony time.
When creating the timeline for your vendors, please ask each vendor their optimal time to arrive and get ready. When crafting a wedding schedule, the focus should be on setting the ceremony start time as the key anchor point.
