Your wedding day flies by and before you know it, your ultimate love celebrations is over. But if you want to be left with nothing but loved up feels, get your wedding timeline sorted. The key to a epic wedding day is a little up front wedding timeline planning. And guess what? We’ve developed a wedding day timeline checklist to get you planning like a pro.
This article contains hints, tips and a link to an easy to follow wedding timeline template to plan like a pro.
The perfect wedding timeline fits the two of you perfectly. If you’re after military minute by minute precision, a wedding timeline can achieve this. And if you’re super laid back and want something a little less uptight, believe it or not, that needs to be planned too.
Breaking down your wedding day timeline into manageable “phases” is the secret to a day filled with loved up vibes – not panicked moments and feeling as though you’re “running behind” all day long.
By the time your day arrives, you should be focused on nothing more than one another and celebrating together with your family and friends. That’s why getting on top of your wedding timeline BEFORE your wedding day is super important.
What your wedding timeline should include
Believe it or not, you might need more than one timeline for your wedding day. Of course, you’ll want one for the two of you. If you’re having a wedding party, they’ll need one too. And your wedding vendors will also need one, but this wedding timeline will carry all sorts of information that you and your wedding partner couldn’t care less about on the day.
Confused?
Here’s a recap:
I always recommend at least the following wedding timelines for your wedding day:
- A timeline for the two of you – this should be super simple and just outline where the two of you need to be, when, for the duration of your wedding day
- Full day wedding timeline (usually your wedding planner will assist you to develop this)
- Timeline for your wedding party – this should include where your wedding party members need to be and by when. Got someone who always run late. Maybe change their timeline to reflect 30 minutes earlier than everyone else’s timeline!
- Timeline for your wedding vendors, eg cake maker, florist, celebrant, photographer etc
- Timeline for your catering staff/team – it’s important that this team know when you would like food and drinks served. This is often around speeches etc so they’ll need a run down of what the order of events looks like for your wedding reception
The Ultimate Wedding Timeline Checklist
Now when it comes to planning your wedding timeline, the more detail you put in it the better. That’s because each tiny element of your day takes time. Want to present your wedding party with heart felt gifts? That might take 15 minutes or so. Want your parents to have a “first look” at you before you head down the aisle? That takes time too. And these are moments you don’t want to rush. So planning for those moments into your wedding timeline is really important.
What I usually suggest is looking through the items below.
- First, cross out the items that won’t be part in your day at all (god bless the fact that every wedding is different!)
- Add in any elements that don’t appear in the list above
- Next, list each venue or location you will be at on your wedding day. For example, your home, a hotel, the ceremony space and your reception location.
- Now under each of these locations, list all of the activities that will happen there
- Once you have listed everything under each location you can start assigning times to those tasks
- When you starting allocating times to each element, work backwards and forwards from your ceremony time
- Remember to leave small gaps between events.
For example, let’s say your ceremony is due to commence at 3pm and run for 25 minutes. Leave room in your timeline for the ceremony to start a little later. The last thing you want is to race back down that aisle after you’re married and be whisked away for photos before getting a kiss and a hug or three from your family and friends.
Pro tip: Allow an extra 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there throughout your wedding timeline. That way, you won’t feel rushed as you move between the different parts of your wedding day.
Another word of advice – your wedding day goes by so ridiculously quickly. Map out at least 15 minutes for the two of you to come together at some stage during your reception. Why? Just to take it all in, check in with one another and high five yourselves for creating such an awesome wedding day for yourselves and those you love.
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Moving between locations on your wedding day
Your wedding timeline needs to allow some time for you to move between locations on your wedding day. Traffic might be bad or one of your wedding party might forget to bring something to the ceremony and so you need
to turn back when you’re nearly at the ceremony. Life happens, even on wedding day, so allow a little extra time when there’s travel involved on your wedding day.
If your guests are moving between your ceremony and your reception location, allow ample travel time in your timeline for that as well.
If your ceremony is in a tricky location, let’s say right in the middle of parklands, on the beach down a sandy track or in a forest, allow plenty of time for your wedding guests to arrive. If your wedding invitation says that your wedding will start at 3.30pm, perhaps reflect a 3.45pm start in your timeline. This allows a little wiggle room, just in case your guests can’t
find your exact, although I am sure extremely gorgeous, location.
Whenever you plan to move from one location to another, time can slip away from you. I cannot even start to tell you all of the reasons this can happen. But it just does.
With this being the case, allow plenty of wiggle room in your wedding timeline for each element. When I say plenty of wiggle room, I mean allow for that task to take 15-30 minutes longer than you think it will take.
And should you be the most organised couple on earth and you don’t need that wiggle room, then you both get massively large gold stars. You’ve just bought yourself more time to celebrate and party with family and friends.
The Biggest Time Zappers On Your Wedding Day
Hair, Make Up and Grooming
Hire a wedding hair and make up artist if you can afford to. They are experienced in managing their time between wedding party members and understand the importance of sticking to the wedding timeline.
The number one reason that lovers arrive late to their ceremony is because there was a blow out with hair, make up and grooming. Turn to your wedding hair and make up artist for a realistic timeline to keep this part of your dream day on track.
Family photos
If you haven’t got someone special in your life to round up family for photos, this process can take a REALLY long time. And that means less time on the dance floor later on.
If you have a wedding planner they may be able to work in conjunction with one of your family members to round people up so that photos can be taken as time efficiently as possible.
And if Great Uncle Bob is on a zimmer frame or walking stick, then give him a little extra time to get where he needs to go.
Speeches
I probably don’t need to say anything about this, but speeches can make or break your wedding PART-AY. Yes, it’s super important to hear from those who are most special to you, but don’t leave the amount of time they speak to chance.
You need to actually talk with loved ones who will be speaking BEFORE your wedding day and let them know how much time they’ve got. Of course, you don’t need to deliver this news harshly, but you do need to explain that it would mean the world to the two of you if they can commit to not running over.
Don’t assume those close to you will only speak for a short period of time. They love you…a lot…and for some family members, this might be the only time in their lives that they get to speak publicly about that very fact.
If need be, ask your loved ones to write you a letter that you can read before or after your wedding day that contains all the feels. They can then deliver a shortened version of that at your actual wedding.
Your ceremony
Get very clear on how long your ceremony will run for. Ask your celebrant or priest or whomever else is marrying you. The length of wedding ceremony will depend on the type of ceremony you are having and where you are getting married.
There are a lot of wedding activities that follow your ceremony. And those activities are all organised in your timeline assuming a particular ceremony length. So make sure you know what that duration is well ahead of your wedding day itself.
Saying goodbye to family and friends
The night is nearly over and you are preparing to leave the best day of your lives on a high. How do you say goodbye to all of your guests at the end of your wedding? Whether you say goodbye to each and every person in a farewell circle or just give everyone a big wave as you head out the door, is completely up to you.
Know that if you choose to say goodbye to every single guest, you could be “farewelling” for well over 1 hour (depending on the size of your guest list).
If you would prefer to spend that time on the dancefloor, perhaps choose to have a sparkler exit or something equally festive and celebratory, so people get all the feels without the personal hug and kiss as you leave.
Of course if you do want to say goodbye to each and every guest, you could extend your reception end time but read your contract first. Those decisions can cost you a lot of money in additional staffing costs should you choose to do this on a whim at the end of your wedding celebration.
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Why Wedding Timelines Work
Wedding timelines keep everything on track on your wedding day. With a little planning, timelines ensure that everyone involved in your wedding day know what is happening, when it’s happening and where it’s happening.
When you take the time to plan, your dream day will unfold just as you have always imagined. Realistic, well planned wedding timelines help everyone on your wedding day to bring their A game. And that means, you are in for the best day of your lives.
If you need more help in creating an ultimate timeline, we can help. Reach out via our Contact Us page by clicking here.