How to Make a Wedding Day Timeline You'll Actually Enjoy
You’ve hired a photographer and videographer for your wedding day, but you don’t want to feel like you’re spending the whole day performing for the cameras. I get it.
Your wedding day should be a celebration of your love story and the people who helped you get here. In my experience, the most precious photos and videos often happen when you’re actually present in those moments, not when you’re rushing from one activity to the next and worrying about the time.
Here are five tips for planning a wedding day that allows you to genuinely enjoy time with your family and friends, while still getting those beautiful shots.
Give Your Timeline Some Breathing Room
A simple way to make your wedding day feel more relaxed is to build in extra time. Try to leave at least 15 minutes between major parts of your day whenever possible.
A bit of a buffer between activities gives your wedding party, family, and vendors time for bathroom breaks, snacks, touch-ups, charging batteries, and, most importantly, chit chat!
You chose these people to stand beside you on one of the biggest days of your life. You should have time to actually enjoy their company without constantly feeling rushed to get to the next thing.
Decide What Actually Matters to You
Before you build your timeline around a list of traditions and photo opportunities, ask yourselves:
What do we actually want to do?
Who do we want to spend time with?
When do we want some alone time together?
What are the 5–10 photos we absolutely have to have?
Maybe a private moment with your dad before the ceremony is important to you. Maybe you want to spend half an hour hanging out with your friends from school. Maybe a posed portrait with your grandparents is deeply meaningful to you.
Make room for those things first. The rest can fill in around them.
Consider Separating Your Editorial Photos From Your Wedding Day
If you love beautiful, editorial-style portraits and you want to be fully present on your wedding day, consider doing a separate portrait session.
You could schedule it the day before your wedding, a few days afterward, or even the following week. This gives you the freedom to take your time, experiment with locations and accessories, and create those gorgeous, intentional portraits without sacrificing time for precious wedding-day moments.
Your wedding day doesn’t have to carry all the responsibility of creating every beautiful image you’ve imagined.
Prioritize Coverage for your Most valued Moments
When choosing your photography and videography coverage, think about which parts of your day you want preserved, not just how many hours fit in your budget.
If you know you’ll want the getting ready moments, the ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, speeches, dancing, and the send-off or late-night fun captured, I highly recommend full-day coverage (which means at least 10 hours).
If you’re working with a shorter coverage window, prioritize the moments that are most meaningful to you instead of trying to cram every single event into a limited number of hours. You can totally get photos of your ceremony, bridal party and family portraits, and some reception activities within a six hour package.
Remember: you don’t need to spend every minute of your wedding day making content.
Let Yourself Be Present
I believe a wedding day should honor and celebrate everyone who has played a role in your life and your relationship.
Making room in your timeline to actually visit with those people will help you feel more present, and that presence will naturally translate into your photos and your wedding film.
As a wedding videographer, I’m a big fan of slowing down and taking it all in.
I’ll happily chat with your grandma about life on the farm. I’ll listen to your uncle’s stories about your childhood. I’ll compliment your cousin’s cake-decorating skills. Because those little interactions are part of your wedding day, too.
When you look back at your film years from now, I want you to remember more than what your wedding looked like. I want you to remember what it felt like to be there.
I can help you get started
I made examples* of wedding day timelines that you can customize to your desires:
*These example timelines assume the couple is a bride and groom and that they will do a first look before the ceremony, along with other traditions, but by all means, tailor the timeline to whatever your situation and desires are, and break any tradition you don't enjoy!
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