It's All About What You Want
Your wedding timeline will be different because it is what you want in your wedding. Building your timeline from scratch is the best, it gives you prospective on what you want and how it will flow. Being realistic about the time you will have is key as well. When you speak with your vendors about what you envision and expect, your timeline becomes clearer and clearer. Your wedding timeline will be unique to you and your fiancé.
Things to Consider
- Will you and your bridesmaids be getting ready either at the ceremony location, hotel room or house? This will also be the same for the groom and his groomsmen.
- Is the ceremony and reception at the same location? if not you would look to transportation and how long it would from place to place?
- Would you want a First Look before the ceremony or have bridal party and family portraits done during cocktail hour?
- How long will your ceremony be? Will be great to speak with officiant.
- Does the venue have an end time for the reception? If so, a tighter timeline will be needed because of the predetermined ending.
- How much time would you need your photographer, videographer and dj/band present for your wedding?
Timing
Now if you’re not an early bird, it's OK. You will just need to understand your timeline in how long your wedding preparation could be for hair and makeup for you and your bridesmaids, if it will be professionally done or not. It comes down to when will the ceremony start to better know what time preparations will be and if everyone will be there at the same time.
When it comes to creating the official wedding agenda, you will need to speak to the wedding planners and event managers/coordinators. They will have experience and understanding of how to put together a wedding agenda.
Safety Net
Adding buffers to the time is something you will definitely need to include in the timeline. Your wedding planner or venue event manager should know what these are and can help you schedule them in, but make sure that your schedule allows for lots of cushion time, because as you know when it comes to traveling to and from locations it needs to factor how traffic will be like around that time frame.
Your Photography Package
Your wedding collections/packages usually includes the number of hours your photographer will work on your wedding day—this is super-important. If you want your photographer to photograph your whole entire day—including you and your crew getting ready — you'll need to pay for at least eight hours of coverage — and that may not even take your photographer to the very end of your reception. Think about how much time you have with your photographer, and when you'd like him or her to start and finish shooting on your big day. If you've paid for less than eight hours, you'll need to be strategic about when your photographer will start and finish and decide if it's more important for your photographer to shoot your getting-ready activities or the end of the night.