Rough Wedding Day Timeline - Feedback Requested

Looks good. However, what kind of meal? Is it plated or buffet? I would ask your caterer how long they anticipate it to take for everyone to be served dinner. How many courses? We had a 3 course plated meal, and I believe we alotted 1.5 or 2 hours for that. Cocktail hour is typically an hour. Are you doing toasts/speeches or anything like a bouquet toss/garter toss?

I think it looks great

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Oh thank you! I just feel so stuck with planning right now.

I thought our ceremony should be a bit earlier (like 4pm) but wasn't sure how much time the other things needed. We probably want to wrap up by 10pm (we can kind of have people hang out after, but music/DJ would be finished by then), and I definitely want at least 2 hours of dancing.

We have our DJ for 5 hours and two photographers for 5 hours (our main shooter we have for 7 hours). We can add extra hours if needed, but I was trying to figure out if 5 hours was enough time or not.

We haven't figured out our meals yet because our caterer has been super busy with the holidays, so we were waiting until after to sort it out. I like the idea of a plated menu, and you are right that would probably need more time.

We are hoping to have a first dance, parent/child dance, and haven't even thought about toasts/speeches, but I think we'd keep them minimal (maybe a brief address by us, and then a speech by the best man and MOH but that's probably it). No garter or bouquet toss. So I guess those things take time too.

Thank you for mentioning all those things. I feel like there are so many details I'm not thinking about and come March (our wedding is in late May) its going to get really crazy really fast, so I'm trying to think of things ahead of time as much as I can.

View Quoted Comment Yeah, it can be hectic, but use your vendors. We got input from our photographer, DJ, and venue coordinator (our venue had an events person who we worked with and our food was through the venue as well). They're the pros and will be able to guide you.

I think it looks fine. Cocktail hour is generally an hour long. Our salad course was served at approximately 6:30 then the buffet opened at 6:45. The dance floor opened up at 8 and our reception ended at 10 then we had an after party at the bar. I think 2.5 hours of dancing is plenty.

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Our venue is doing our food and the owner is so helpful. Literally every review just glows about how wonderful she. It is a little confusing because she doesn't actually serve as a day of coordinator (because she is super busy with food and some venue logistics and such) but does help a lot with giving advice and input ahead of time if you have any questions. She did recommend our bartending service and florist so they are all people she is really familiar with and who have done events together before. Our photographer is someone we are bringing in but I'm absolutely confident in her, and my FH handled the DJ but I think that will go smoothly as well. We haven't hired a DOC at this point and are hoping we don't need to.

I probably just need to chill out for another week and then can start sending emails again once everyone gets back into the swing after holiday vacation mode. I just feel like I have been doing NOTHING, and I've been really holding off on reaching out to vendors over the holidays because everyone deserves a break. I'm sure once all that starts up again I'll feel like we are making planning progress.

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Thanks. I think that's a good point... our dinner "hour" can bleed into our dance time a bit, so if we serve dinner at 6:30pm it doesn't really matter whether we start dancing at 7:30pm or 8pm and can really kick off the party whenever makes the most sense.

View Quoted Comment Yeah, you don't really need to finalize the timeline until you're within the last month. We had a 16 month engagement, and there were long stretches where there wasn't really much to do wedding planning wise. Relax. If you feel like you've been doing nothing, but you're worried about month of things, it probably means that there isn't much to do. So just take this time to relax and enjoy your engagement.

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Mostly I know we do need to pick a start time because it needs to go on our invites, which for whatever reason everyone says we need to do soon, even though I don't think they'll take too long to come in. Since we have a definite "finish time" of 10pm, I'm trying to work backwards and figure out when things should start. I'm not super worried about the start or end times of things in the middle, but want to make sure we allocate enough time for everything and aren't feeling rushed.

Our wedding is May 30, but we need a final headcount three weeks before which means our RSVP date will probably be April 29th or so (so about 10 days before our final headcount is due). Therefore I wanted to send our invites out by April 1 (5 weeks before the RSVP date). I was hearing people say it only takes a couple weeks for invites to come once you order them, but Wedding Wire and every other planning checklist I look at says they should be ordered about 5 months in advance (which is now). I feel like as long as we order them before the end of February, we should be fine. We don't even have our food picked out yet, so can't include it with an RSVP card or guest's online RSVP yet, so I'm not really sure why all the checklists say it should be done already. I know we still have time, I just don't want to fall behind.

View Quoted Comment Is your ceremony inside or outside? Will you want any posed photos outside?


The first person I consulted on timeline was my photographer. Then venue coordinator. We were having an outdoor ceremony and wanted first look/formals before the ceremony and some romantic sunset bride/groom photos. With that my photographer suggested a ceremony start time to allow for those photos and my venue coordinator confirmed the ceremony area would be shaded for guests around the ceremony time. You can also google typical sunset times for your city and date.
If you do not need to factor sun light or sunset into your timeline, then it’s just a matter of what time do you want to get married and what time are you willing to get up and start getting ready. 😁

I think that looks perfect! That's pretty much our timeline too.

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Thanks! I'm a photographer so all about the light! I literally had Google Earth and The Photographer's Ephemeris out before booking our date to get a better idea of sunset times and sun angles at that time of year (FH thought it was a bit crazy, but fully expected it).

We're getting married end of May in New Hampshire so the days will be pretty long regardless; sunset is at 8:20pm so there is no way we're going to push back dinner and everything just so we can hold our ceremony close to golden hour. Assuming we have good weather, the ceremony will be outside on an exposed hillside so guests will be in direct sun. We want guests eating at a reasonable hour and plenty of time for dancing and celebrating, so a start time somewhere between 4pm-5pm seems most reasonable, and the light will be a bit harsh at that time but it is what it is. The rest of the venue is totally worth it and we will be able to step out of the party for additional photos around the time when the light gets really good, which is why it will be good to have the dance floor open by 8pm.

We haven't decided about first look photos yet. I know it allows for more time for photos and time with guests, but we both really like the idea of seeing each other for the first time at the ceremony, and I don't love the idea of doing our couple photos without our rings on or posing with our rings before the actual ceremony. Whether or not we do that may alter our timeline a bit.

Yes. This is a solid timeline. I am also in a band that does a lot of weddings, so we make timelines all the time. Note a couple of things: always allow a little wiggle room to move guests from one place to another, i.e. if your cocktail hour is over by 5:30, you may need to have someone start moving your guests into the reception space by 6:20. It will take 10 full minutes to get everyone inside and sitting down. Also, if you do introductions, first dances and toasts as soon as you enter your reception space at 6:30, count on that taking about 20 minutes in itself. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour for everyone to eat, but if it's plated and they run a little behind, expect everyone to receive and eat food in 90 minutes (i.e. to have your DJ start playing music). A good DJ will also make sure everyone is about done eating before cranking up the music, so make sure they keep an eye out for that if service is running behind. :-D Hope that's helpful!

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Super helpful thanks so much!