There are plenty of wedding timelines online and most of them look the same: a list of times, everything evenly spaced, everything adding up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trouble is that a wedding day plan doesn’t fall apart evenly. It always breaks in the same four places, and the delay drags on through the rest of the day and eats whatever sits at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m writing this from a particular point of view. The photographer is the only person at a wedding who is there from the morning preparations to the bouquet and veil ceremony around midnight, and who has no other job that day than to watch. The band arrives for the reception. The venue staff see the venue. The two of you are in the middle of the day and have other things on your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below is a sample hour-by-hour plan and the four places where it breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bride getting ready is the first item of the day and the first one to slip. Make-up and hair take longer than the plan assumes, and then come the things nobody writes into a timeline: getting into the dress, photos with Mum and the maid of honour, hunting for the second earring, a phone call from an aunt who doesn’t know where to park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A practical rule: whatever your hairdresser tells you, add half an hour. Nobody has ever regretted being ready too early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You need less from me during this time than you might think. The getting ready itself can be wrapped up in half an hour, and sometimes that’s how it goes. But then it’s exactly a box-ticking exercise: dress, shoes, rings, done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I prefer to have more time and I say so openly, because it’s worth knowing when you put the plan together. If you want to have some fun with your bridesmaids and a glass of champagne, it’s better for that to happen in a relaxed, spontaneous way than for me to stand there with a watch in my hand ticking off shots. This isn’t a photo shoot. That hour gives you the photos nobody could have planned, and those are usually the ones you end up loving most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t need a separate slot in the timeline and I don’t make anyone wait for me. All I ask is that the morning isn’t scheduled down to the minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between getting ready and the ceremony there’s the drive, and it’s the item most often planned with no margin at all. In the timeline it looks like a single line: “15:30 leave for the church”. In reality it’s made up of several things, and each of them eats minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have to get there. You have to park, and outside a church at three o’clock on a Saturday, half the wedding is parking too. You have to unload and carry things in. For me that always means a few minutes before I even start working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On top of that there’s something couples usually don’t know about, because it happens without them. Before you walk in, I have to be in the church early: to photograph the interior and the details while it’s still empty, and to say hello to the priest. The second part isn’t a courtesy. Every parish has its own rules about where a photographer may stand and when, and the time before the ceremony is the only moment when that can be agreed calmly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This item has one more unpleasant feature: it’s the only one that can’t be shortened on the day. During the receiving line you can ask people to move a bit faster, during the couple portraits you can take fewer photos. In a car there’s nothing you can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leave a buffer here, even if the drive is ten minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This item eats more time than any other and almost nobody counts it. So let’s count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With 150 guests, around 75 couples come up to congratulate you. If each takes half a minute, that’s forty minutes. And half a minute is a very optimistic assumption, because people hug, take a photo on their phone and say something longer than one sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In reality the receiving line at a wedding that size can take an hour, and that hour is taken from something else. Usually from the couple portraits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can be arranged differently. Congratulations straight after the ceremony, before you leave for the venue, rather than at the table. Or during the reception, at the guests’ tables. It’s worth agreeing this with the venue staff beforehand, because they decide when dinner is served.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The couple portraits are always at the bottom of the list, and that’s why they always take the hit. If the morning ran late and the receiving line took an hour, the portraits turn into “right then, let’s quickly do twenty minutes”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I encourage couples to do them on the wedding day, and not because it suits me. That’s when you’re ready, dressed, made up and in a state of emotion that’s gone a week later. A short portrait session on the day is included in every one of my packages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it needs its own hour in the plan, not whatever time happens to be left over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything in a timeline can be moved except one thing. Sunset happens when it happens, and it doesn’t care that dinner overran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This matters for two reasons. The hour before sunset has the best light of the whole day, and that’s where the photos you later hang on the wall come from. And after sunset the portraits look different. They can still be done, but they’re completely different photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunset in Warsaw:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference between June and early October is almost three hours. A September wedding and a June wedding need completely different day plans, even if the ceremony is at the same time. That’s something ready-made timelines from the internet don’t take into account, because they’re written without a date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice: if you’re getting married in September at four in the afternoon, your window for portraits is between six and seven, which is exactly when dinner is usually served. That has to be sorted out in advance, not on the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Family photos are the only point of the day where someone has to direct people, and the only one where I do it. If nobody thinks about them in advance, the same thing always happens: in the evening it turns out Grandma isn’t in a single photo and half the family has already gone home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are three places in the plan where this works. Pick one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Straight after leaving the church, before the receiving line.<\/strong> Everyone is still in one place and nobody has had time to wander off. The order matters here: photos first, congratulations second. The other way round doesn’t work, because after the congratulations people drift away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the venue, at an agreed time, while it’s still light.<\/strong> This needs one decision made beforehand: where exactly and when. Just not after dark, because then they’re completely different photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the dance floor, during the party.<\/strong> This is the option I like best, because it doesn’t take anyone out of the wedding. You sit down and the guests come up to you in groups and pose. The DJ runs the whole thing, so it goes quickly and smoothly, and it becomes part of the fun rather than people lining up in rows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The last option has the advantage that you don’t have to go looking for anyone. People are in the room anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scenario: church ceremony at 16:00, a wedding for 120 guests, a September date.<\/p>\n\n\n\ndate<\/th> sunset<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 15 May<\/td> 20:24<\/td><\/tr> 21 June<\/td> 21:02<\/td><\/tr> 15 July<\/td> 20:53<\/td><\/tr> 15 August<\/td> 20:04<\/td><\/tr> 1 September<\/td> 19:27<\/td><\/tr> 15 September<\/td> 18:55<\/td><\/tr> 1 October<\/td> 18:17<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Group photos: plan them and they won’t take an hour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A sample hour-by-hour plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n