Wedding Timeline - The most hectic and Stressful of All!!!

I was going to type out answers to all of your questions, but I think it would just be easier to show you the rough draft of my timeline I didn't accommodate for a whole lot of dancing, just because that's not really our crowd. Hope this helps!

9:00 Arrive at venue to begin setup
11:00 Brief lunch break/begin getting ready
1:15 Pre-wedding photos (bride/dad first look, bride/family, groom/family, wedding parties)
2:15 Finish photos to return to bride/groom suites
2:30 Early bird guests start to arrive
3:00 Invite time
3:10 Ceremony Begins (to accommodate late comers if necessary)
3:35 Ceremony Ends/Guests move to reception area
3:40 Cocktail Hour/Post Ceremony Photos
4:40 Introduction of Bride & Groom/First Dance
4:50 Welcome (Father of the Bride)
4:55 Prayer from Grandfather of Groom
5:00 Dinner begins (buffet style)
5:45 Toasts
6:00 Father/Daughter & Mother/Son Dances
6:10 Dancing/Sunset Photos
7:00 Cake cutting
7:15 Bouquet/Garter Toss
7:45 Last Dance
8:00 Send Off

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Thank you so much this has been extremely helpful!!!!!! You're my hero!

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Glad I could help! Best of luck in the rest of your planning

Hi Paige, I am so sorry you are stressed. Our wedding was was 4:30-10 then we had an after party. We had 3 bridesmaids, 1 MOH, 1 bridesman, 3 groomsmen, 1 best man, 1 groomswoman, 1 usher, 1 ring bearer and 2 flower girls. We had 9 people have their hair professionally done (includes my grandmother who just got a blow out and two flower girls) and 5 people have their makeup professionally done (includes my 2 flower girls). We had 1 hair stylist and 1 makeup artist. The makeup artist is also a hair stylist so she arrived early to prep the hair because the hair stlyist's assistant had a family emergency and couldn't make it. Below I have included our timeline.

8:00 am - hair and makeup started
12:00 pm - photographer arrived for getting ready photos. We had two photographers (husband and wife team). Husband went with the guys and wife came with us ladies.
2:00 pm - hair and makeup completed & groomsmen photos
2:30 pm - bride dressed by 2:30 & bridesmaids photos immediately after
3:00 pm - first look with bride and father
3:10 pm - first look with groom
3:10-3:40 pm - bride and groom photos
3:45 pm - I was hidden before guests arrived
4:30 pm - ceremony begins
5:00 pm - ceremony ends, receiving line, and cocktail hour starts
5:15-6:00 pm - family photos/full wedding party photos/more photos of the bride and groom while guests are at cocktail hour

6:15 pm - introductions into first dance
6:25 pm - 3 toasts
6:30-6:40 pm - salad course served while toasts were still going on
6:45 pm - buffet opens
7:30 pm - cake cutting
7:35 pm - dad/daughter dance then mother/son dance
7:45 pm - trivia game
8:00 pm - dance floor opens with a slow song to get everyone out onto the dance floor
9:50 pm - spotlight last dance song that we then invited everyone to come dance to
10:00 pm - everyone left for after party and bride changed into after party dress then went to after party with groom

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Thank you sooooooooo much!!!!! Thankfully this has been the only really stressful thing for the entire process other than my fiance hearing he may be deployed but that hurtle is over lol. Whew! Thanks again!

Paige

I would honestly just look up a bunch of examples and model your own after those! If you have a coordinator through your venue/on your own, they would be a great person to consult as well. I would also get opinions from people like your photographer (how long photos would take), hair and makeup person, etc. Just getting a rough draft will help you get started, and you can adjust as you get closer.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much Jennifer!

Hello everyone! So after some digging and hard thought I have actually decided on a wedding timeline that should work perfectly!!! However, I will leave the discussion up and maybe this will be a help to more brides out there!!! Congrats to all and well wishes on happily ever afters! #MySchwanAndOnly 🥰💍👰🏼

View Quoted Comment You're welcome! We got lucky with this because our photographer put together a timeline for photos and our venue put together a timeline for everything else so we were able to combine them into one full timeline which was super easy. Otherwise I would have been stressed too.