Wedding Timeline: How Much Time Do I Need?

I was thinking about the most asked question from our couples and it is “how much time do I need?” That my friend is kind of a loaded question but can be answered very easily with these 3 questions below:

1. What time is your ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception?

2. Are you doing a first look and your photos before or seeing each other when you walk down the aisle?

3. Are you doing an exit at the very end of the reception?

I always start with your ceremony start time and work backwards from there. If you are NOT seeing each other before the ceremony, typically 2 hours of the getting ready process is normally the perfect time to get finishing touches of hair and makeup, all the detail shots, and important moments like first look with dad, bridesmaids in cute robes, gorgeous bridal portraits etc etc.

What is your fiancee and their wedding besties doing you may ask? Well, our other photographer will be with them doing finishing getting ready photos, photos of them together etc etc.

If you ARE seeing each other (first look) before the ceremony then we would back up the start time of getting ready to an hour earlier so that we have an hour to do first look, all the wedding party photos, and lots of prettiness of the 2 of you!

The best part about this is that generally you will get to go to at least half of your cocktail hour to greet everyone (and try all the appetizers)!

Ceremony time is SO SO important!! Here in Florida we have million dollar sunsets on the beach and even stunning skies if you aren't on the beach. If you aren't doing a first look we recommend doing your ceremony at least 1.5 hours BEFORE sunset so you have the entire cocktail hour for family photos, wedding party photos and the beautiful light for sunset with the 2 of you. Golden hour, it's a thing, a really pretty one:-)

Daylight savings starts generally the evening of the first Saturday in November, moving from around 6:30 to 5:30pm and then in March springs forward to give an extra hour of daylight.

For your reception if you are NOT doing an exit at the very end (like sparklers, a cool car, etc) then generally 2.5-3 hours is plenty of time to photograph everything going on, If you ARE doing an exit then you definitely want photos to capture the end to an amazing evening!!

If everything is in one location, generally 6-8 hours works well, if there's multiple locations or a church wedding typically 8-10 hours works well.   And, thats how we do it!

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