A Sample Wedding Day Timeline

Last Saturday, I had the sweetest meeting with a bride & groom, the groom’s Mom & Dad, and the bride’s Mom. Meeting with such a large group of people was a little bit intimidating (I mean, usually, I just meet up with the bride & groom! Talk about an audience)! They were the absolute sweetest people in the whole world though & I had such a wonderful time learning all about them, their story, and their vision for their wedding day.

While going over my wedding photography options with them though, the bride looked me straight in the eyes & said something that I’ve been thinking about ever since. She said, “We are the first of our friends to get married and we haven’t attended many weddings. We have absolutely no idea what a wedding day looks like.”

First off: I just have to give the bride major props for being so honest with me! I mean, it’s so easy to put up a front & say, “Oh, sure! I’ve got it all together! I can plan my own wedding, no problem!” But it takes serious guts to admit that wedding planning is hard & with no one around to help who has walked the path before you, it’s utterly overwhelming.

So, that’s what got my wheels turning for this post. I have photographed and been a part of somewhere around 100 weddings (someday, I’ll go through & come up with a specific count, but until then let’s just say “approximately”). Don’t get me wrong: there are wedding professionals out there that have been a part of hundreds (yep, with an ‘s’) of weddings, but I’d still confidently say I have a pretty good grasp on the inner-workings of what makes a wedding day run smoothly. That’s one of the reasons I started working with each of my brides & grooms to create a specific timeline for their wedding day. Trust me, it doesn’t always go as planned, but at least we have a plan in place for when things get a little off-track!

That being said, I wanted to share what a typical wedding day looks like. Obviously, every wedding day is different and every wedding has unique circumstances. But in general, most wedding days follow one of two typical paths, both with traditional stops along the way.

I think the major moment in a wedding day that separates one day from another is whether the bride & groom choose to do a First Look & see each other before the ceremony or not. Since the absence or inclusion of a First Look truly does change the anatomy of a wedding day, I’ve created two sample wedding day timelines just to give you an idea of what a typical wedding day (might) look like:

So, like I said – every single wedding day is unique and different. Every wedding day has special circumstances and situations that make it truly one-of-a-kind. Those little things will be what makes your wedding day personalized to you! And that is precisely the reason that I work with each of my brides & grooms in the weeks leading up to their wedding, to make sure that we have a detailed timeline in place to encompass all of the unique ways that their wedding is “them”.

There are many factors that come into play on a wedding day that affect the timeline & flow of the day. Things like:

• Travel time: How much time will it take to get from where the bride/groom is getting ready to the ceremony location? From the ceremony to the portrait location? From the portrait location to the reception?
• Same location: Maybe everything is taking place on the same property – everyone is getting ready there, they’ll simply walk down to the ceremony, we’ll take portraits there, and then walk up to the reception.
• Time restrictions set in place by the church or venue: Sometimes a church will only hold a wedding at a certain specific time on a Saturday, due to other services taking places later that afternoon or evening. Sometimes a venue will only begin a reception at a certain time, due to other events being held earlier in the day.
• Number of portraits: How large your bridal party is & how many family formals we have to take. Obviously, the larger the bridal party is and the longer the list of family formals all play into needing more time on your wedding day.

More than likely, this is your first time being engaged and planning a wedding. It isn’t exactly something that you typically do over & over again! My last piece of advice is that if all of this is crazy overwhelming to you and you just can’t seem to wrap your brain around all that needs to be done, I’d highly suggest hiring a wedding planner. There are amazing people out there who will walk with you, hand-in-hand, and help you with every aspect of planning your wedding. You can fall back on their expertise & they will make the whole planning process so much simpler!

This isn’t an ad, and I’m not getting paid to say this, but one of my dearest friends is a wedding planner! So, if you are in the Pittsburgh, PA area, I can’t recommend contacting Tiffany Jackson at Joy Filled Occasions enough! She’s been in the wedding industry for 10 years and she’s amazing! You will absolutely love working with her, I promise!