(Image: Plan A Wedding)
If you haven’t hired a wedding planner to help you through the planning process and manage your wedding day, you may be asking yourself “Where do I even start?” in creating the wedding day timeline for each of the vendors. Here are just a few of tips to help you create a timeline that makes sense to you and your vendors. This is by no means exhaustive.
- Start with your ceremony time. This will always drive what happens before and after. Make sure that every one of your vendors knows what time the wedding ceremony is supposed to begin.
- Next speak with your Catering Manager at your wedding venue about their timing needs. He or she will give you an idea of what they typically do during the cocktail hour and reception. You can always make changes to the flow of the evening, but it will give you a starting point. Dry or overcooked food is not a good thing.
- How long does your photographer need? Fresh LiME Events is a big proponent of doing a bulk, if not all, of your wedding photos before the ceremony. If you’re planning on doing this, speak with your photographer about how long they’ll need prior to the ceremony. Once you have this in mind, just back up from the ceremony start time. You can back everything else up from this point as well.
- Budget for extra time for everything!! If you do your photos before the ceremony at the ceremony location and don’t want to be seen by guests, leave yourself at least 45 minutes before the ceremony time to wrap up. You, your soon-to-be-husband, and the bridal party will be whisked off into the bridal suite to have a cocktail while guests arrive. If you are traveling from a different location to the ceremony site, leave time for traffic. Well, this last tip goes for a lot of things, really. Always err on the side of caution!
- Oh and be sure to give a copy of the day timeline to every one of your wedding vendors in advance of the big day so they know what to expect and can ask questions if needed.
What’s the biggest issue you’re having with your timeline?
Just a little squeeze of LiME….
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