One of the most intimidating tasks of the entire wedding planning process is building the timeline of your day. There are quite a few moving parts to each and every wedding, and for most people this is their first go round at planning a wedding in general! There’s a lot of pressure to get things right, which is why I decided to put this article together. Here we’ll go through the main events of a wedding day, how those affect the layout of your day, and how to plan out the remaining moments so that you’ll have a strategy to build a timeline that fits YOUR wedding day!

Lay Out Your Crucial Events

The first thing you’ll want to do when building the timeline of your wedding day is determine the crucial events of your day. There are a lot of important moments of your wedding day, but some are very time specific. These moments are the ones that you’ll end up building your timeline around since there’s little to no flexibility with how they impact your day. Let’s take a look at the three main events that will create the foundation of your wedding day timeline: venue parameters, sunset, and whether or not you have a first look on your wedding day.

Venue Parameters

One of the very first things you’ll do as you get into the thick of planning your wedding day is booking the venue(s) that will be hosting the ceremony and/or reception of your wedding. Whether you’re having both the ceremony and reception at one venue or multiple, booking these early is crucial. Not only does this lock in your wedding date, allowing you to book other vendors, send out save the dates, etc, but it also means you can start laying the framework of your wedding day timeline! Many venues have specific start and end times for the ceremony and your dinner. These hard set times are crucial in laying the groundwork for what will become your full wedding day timeline, so make sure you take note of them!

Sunset Time

Your next crucial event of the day is sunset, yet another reason why you want to book your wedding venue as early as possible. Knowing your wedding date means you can look up when sunset will be that day, and trust me you’re not going to want to miss a portrait opportunity during a Hawaii sunset! For those planning an intimate wedding in Hawaii it’s also important to note that some venues actually schedule your ceremony to be during sunset to give it that magical golden hour look. This isn’t too common though, so more than likely you’ll be using the sunset as part of your 3 point framework for your wedding day timeline.

First Look or No First Look?

The third and final piece of your wedding day’s framework before we start to fill in the gaps is deciding whether or not to have a first look on your wedding day. Whether or not you have a first look or not is important as it greatly affects when your portraits are taken, which then affects the overall flow of your wedding day timeline. With a first look you’ll be able to take your wedding party and a majority of your couples portraits early in the day, freeing up time elsewhere to enjoy things like cocktail hour. Without a first look you’ll have to wait until after your ceremony for practically all of your portrait photos, drastically limiting the amount of flexibility you have for your day.

I have a full article that breaks down why I love first looks that you should check out, just note that either way your decision will be a huge factor in the timeline of your day.

Begin Filling in the Gaps

Now that we know the rough framework of our wedding day timeline it’s time to start filling in the gaps of the day! 

1. Getting Ready

Your day will start with you and your partner getting ready either on location at your venue, in your hotel, at home, or somewhere else entirely. Depending on whether or not you have a wedding party they will also be getting ready for the day with you. During this time your photographer will arrive to take a few detail photos as well as some getting ready portraits.

The amount of time this takes varies greatly from wedding to wedding, so the best course of action to plan out this part of your timeline is to talk with your hair and makeup artist to discuss how long it will take. Are they doing just your hair and makeup, or members of your wedding party as well? How many wedding party members do you have that will need to get their hair and makeup done? This all affects your getting ready time, but thankfully with it being the first thing of the day you can start the process as early as necessary!

2. First Look(s)

Next up are the first look(s) if you plan on including any into your wedding day, if not you can skip ahead to part 4. Otherwise, once you’re dressed and ready it’s time for the first looks? Typically most couples will have one with their parent(s), wedding party members, and their soon to be spouse, though you really can have a first one with anyone you’d like. Are you and your spouse also planning on reading any private vows with one another during your first look, or are you saving that for the ceremony?

First looks are quick, usually only taking up a max of 15 minutes, and private vows usually add around 6 to 10 minutes. The thing to keep in mind here, and throughout the entirety of the day, is any travel time needed to get from one destination to another. For example if you have three first looks that each take 5 minutes, but the third one is at your ceremony space 20 minutes away you’ll want to allot yourself ~45 minutes (10 for the first looks, 20-30 for travel, and 5 for the final first look), to give yourself some leeway!

3. Wedding Party and Couples Portraits (with First Look)

As I mentioned earlier, the main benefit of having a first look on your wedding day is the flexibility it gives your timeline. This flexibility comes from the ability to take your wedding party portraits and a large portion of your couples portraits as there’s no need for the couple to avoid one another any longer.

The average time allotted for couples portraits during this section sits at around 30 minutes, though that can vary depending on how many photos you want and how long you have until your ceremony begins. Wedding party portraits are usually quicker, only lasting about 20 minutes. This again can vary depending on how many photos you want, and whether or not you have a 2nd photographer for your wedding.

4. Your Ceremony

Finally comes our first universal major event of the day, your ceremony! Ceremonies can be as quick and easy, or as intricate and elaborate as you want them to be, so long as they fit within the venue’s timeframe. On average most venues will allot around 30 minutes for your ceremony, though in some cases, like larger and more traditional church ceremonies, it can be closer to an hour.

5. Family Photos 

Immediately after your ceremony is when you’ll slot your family photos into your wedding day timeline. Be sure to let your family members know the week before your wedding that they’ll be included in these photos, so that no one wanders off after the ceremony. Prioritize grouping photos with anyone that doesn’t move well together such as grandparents to be back to back to minimize their movement. Finally, make sure to get the kiddos done earlier rather than later so you can avoid any potential meltdowns!

Depending on the layout of your wedding day timeline, these portraits could eat into a bit of your cocktail hour time if it begins directly after your ceremony. Generally speaking these photos take around 30-45 minutes depending on how large your families are, and how many variations of your photos you want.

6. Wedding Party and Couples Portraits (Without First Look)

If you plan on including a first look into your day so that you can get your portraits done early you can skip ahead to part 7, go ahead and enjoy cocktail hour! For those of you that aren’t planning on having a first look in your wedding day timeline, this is when your wedding party portraits and newlywed portraits will take place.

Just as before, the time these portraits take depends heavily on how many portraits you want for each grouping. On average couples portraits will take around 30 minutes, and wedding party portraits around 20. Keep in mind that this is all taking place after family portraits, and before the start of your reception. This means that you’re likely to miss the majority of your cocktail hour, and if things are running behind you’ll have to cut some corners in order to make it to the start of your reception.

7. Cocktail Hour

Next up is cocktail hour! Cocktail hour lasts, well an hour, and depending on what your timeline looks like up to this point you could be present for almost all of it or practically none of it! It all depends on the layout of your day. In short, if you had a first look you’ll be able to enjoy more of your cocktail hour, whereas if you didn’t have a first look you’ll be able to attend little to none of the cocktail hour.

8. The Reception

Following cocktail hour is the beginning of your reception! There are a few main events that take place during a wedding reception, though when those events happen varies greatly from wedding to wedding. The biggest factor in this is of course that main framework we talked about earlier, the start and end time for your dinner. The main events of the reception and their general length are as follows:

• Grand Entrance(s): 1~3 minutes
• Welcome Speech(es): 2~5 minutes each
• Toasts to the Newlyweds: 3~5 minutes each 
• Dinner: Generally 30~45 minutes, but it depends on the venue and your guest count
• First Dance(s): ~3 minutes each (are only the newlyweds dancing or are parent dances happening as well?)
• Cake Cutting: ~4 minutes
• Dance Floor Opens: Generally 2 hours though this can vary depending on how late the dance floor first opens and when your venue’s set end time is.

9. Sunset Portraits

The only other factor of your wedding day timeline is a big one, your sunset portraits! The timing of these of course depends entirely on when the sun is actually setting. Depending on when this falls you’ll have to move some of the events of your reception around to best fit a quick trip outside for some golden hour portraits. Typically these take around 20~30 minutes, again depending on how many portraits you’re looking for.

A Final Note

There you have it, a rough time frame and layout of a wedding day timeline that you can use as an outline for your wedding day. There are a few more crucial pieces of info that I want to mention before we end this article though. First is a reminder to use the resources that you have available, specifically your vendors! Whether you intend on booking a wedding planner, or your photographer offers timeline assistance, use their guidance to help you create your timeline in a way that ensures you’re able to fit everything you want into your wedding day. 

In addition to that you’ll also want to share your timeline with the key players of your wedding day. By key players I mean every member of your vendor team, and then anyone else involved in specific events of the day such as your wedding parties, family members, etc. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page and on schedule for the entire day.

That just about covers everything we need to know about building a wedding day timeline! For more wedding planning tips, like how many hours of coverage to your wedding photographer, check out some of the other resources on the blog. For a look at more of my work check out my Instagram, and if you’re looking to have me document your wedding day in Hawaii be sure to send an inquiry through my contact page!