Wedding timeline

Our photographer gives us 6 hours as well. She's meeting us at 4pm for my bridal pictures before our 6pm ceremony and will wrap up at 10pm.

6 hours is not unheard of and can get you a lot of photos! 2pm until 8pm is actually great as long as you're on schedule to start your photos at 2 and are good with managing your time

If your reception starts at 6, I would just make sure you get all of your "formalities" done and out of the way right away - all of the introductions, dances, speeches, cake cutting, and all that stuff that makes for the best photos. If your photographer knows they're in a time crunch, just make sure to tell them your must have shots, and let them go wild - they're great at what they do! (Generally!)

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I agree with this. We had ours for 7 hours. Our ceremony was at 3. This was our photography timeline:

12:30- 1 detail shots and getting ready shots

1-1:30 first look

1:30-2:45 wedding party and VIPs with bride and groom

3-4 ceremony

4-4:15 signing the marriage license; group shot

4:15-5 more pics of wedding party and VIPs at church; bride and groom at church

5-5:45 detail shots of the reception space before guests enter and pics of cocktail hour

6-6:30 welcome toast, pics of guests eating

6:30-7 photographer ate dinner (don't forget to feed your photographer - this 30 minutes does not count toward your time)

7-7:30 she came with us to do our table visits and took pics of each couple with us so we could give them these pics in their thank you card

7:30 bridesmaid's toast on behalf of wedding party

7:45 cake cutting

7:55 first dance

8 open dance floor; she took some pics of people dancing and then left for the day.

Once people start dancing there's only so many pics you will want of that so you're not going to miss anything once they leave. We got over 730 pics of the day and that is more than enough.

Hi Kara!

Wonderful advice from the PPs!

Melissa made a great point about moving forward any photo opportunities to the early part of the reception including spotlights dances, cake cutting, etc, to make sure the photographer is still there!

Do you plan on doing a first look before the ceremony?

View Quoted Comment We do plan on doing a first look before the ceremony. Our ceremony is at 3 and it at the zoo. The buildings will be closing at 4 so we need any indoor photos to be before the ceremony. I also wanted to get some "getting ready" pics but am thinking maybe those don't need to be professionally done? Maybe the bridesmaids could help by just taking pictures throughout? We also will not be starting the reception until 6 (dinner is served around 7)