Wedding day timeline, where should I begin? ...

Wedding day timeline, where should I begin? The time has come to sit down and flesh out your wedding day time line, where should we even begin? Let’s be honest, it seems so daunting looking at the whole day and scheduling in all the getting ready photos, driving to the wedding ceremony location etc. What time do we need to be at the reception? Let’s face it, most of us aren’t wedding planners. I’m not, maybe I could be, I’ve photographed enough weddings here in Melbourne, anyway, I’m here to help you out in putting something together.

Stress now so then you can sit back and enjoy the ride!

When you attend a wedding that goes well, things will flow from one thing to the next. People seem to automatically know where to go. You don’t spend a moment thinking about logistics because you’re having so much fun. The reason things seem so effortless is that somebody behind the scenes (possibly a wedding planner, possibly a bridezilla :-0) spent a lot of time outlining what will happen when, who needs to be where, and what objects need to be in place at what times. We always had a saying when I used to work as a Chef, “Do the stressing out now so come service time (the wedding day), you can sit back & enjoy the ride”.

A red hot tip!

Be realistic when scheduling time to each section – allowing time will also give you a buffer so if things don’t run to schedule, no stress, you’ve got it covered!  As an overview, your timeline should include:

Bride prep photos

Groom prep photos

Guest arrival at ceremony

Bride arrival at ceremony

Ceremony commences

Congratulatory period

Family photos

Couple portraits / Bridal party photos

Guests to be seated at reception

Bride and groom to enter reception

Cutting the cake

The first dance

Speeches

Father/daughter, mother/son dance

Sunset portraits

Meals

Dancing

Exit

Do I need a Wedding planner?

That all depends on what sort of budget you have allocated. From personal experiences, wedding planners are worth more than their weight in gold, seriously, the amount of time and effort that goes into planning a wedding is huge. It’s approx 625 hours to plan a wedding.  Lauren from Weddings of Desire breaks down the process into 4 stages. You may not have all of these stages to consider but it’s still a great piece of copy for you to go through and think about things.

For me, I’m not good with excel spreadsheets, I just don’t see things in spreadsheets lol! When you book me in (fingers crossed), I provide a wedding day worksheet which includes all the necessary details that are relevant to me. It’s my go to, it tells me what is happening and at what time I need to be there. Plus any important information like a surprise flash dance. The last thing we don’t want is to get caught off guard or be sitting out the back eating our meals and something important is going on. In summarising, we need all of the details that are relevant to us.

As always I’m here to help you flesh out your time line, it’s part of the service that I offer.

Below,I have provided some links to a few wedding planners that I have worked with for years, they come highly recommend from me. You’ll also find a list of vendors on my Friends page.