Lovely Brides :) How is your ceremony and reception timeline creations going?

I'm right there with you, my fellow OCD list obsessed lady!

We had to set our reception time waaaay early, because I had a fantastic 60% off coupon that was expiring for our invitations! We knew we wanted to do pictures before our ceremony, so we settled on 3:30 start time for our ceremony - our Reverend gave us the length for the ceremony. Everything else has been built out from there. I spoke with my hair and makeup artists to get an idea of time needed per girl, then did up a timetable for that. I also planned in 30 minutes of cushion to hair and makeup, just in case - if we don't need it, my photographer said she'd do some bridal boudoir pictures.

I've done a lot of research on where we want pictures done, so we know our travel time to and from those locations - I've also added in an extra 15 minutes of travel time each way, just in case.

My fiancé and I are also not super traditional people, so we want the 'formal' part of the reception to be over ASAP and get on to the party! That affected our timeline in that we are scheduling our speeches DURING dinner instead of after. We know the order we want things to happen in, and have a basic idea of timing - we also know SOMETHING will not go to plan and we will adapt. I think expecting something to go wonky helps ease stress because when it happens, you aren't panicking about it.

7 am - Bridal party starts getting hair and makeup done, and Groomsmen's haircuts and shaves. The boys will also decorate our rented SUV's during this time, and be back at the hotel for 10 am to finish getting ready.

12 pm - Leave for first look and pictures

12:30 - First Look, followed by wedding party pictures - I think we may pack a picnic of finger foods to munch on during this - may make for cute pictures, too!

3 pm - Head to the church

3:30 pm - Ceremony start time

4:15-4:30 - Ceremony ends; receiving line at church.

5 pm - Hall opens for cocktail hour - Our church is 2.5 km from the reception hall, and we want people at the front of the receiving line to be able to head right over and relax, and not have to fill 30-45 minutes of waiting time. During this hour, we will do family pictures with the bride and groom before heading to the reception hall for about 5:45 pm

5:55 pm - MC asks people to take their seats.

6 pm - Bridal Party's entrance

6:15 - Buffet opens - we're having a simple taco buffet so it should be pretty quick to get everyone through.

6:45-7 pm - Speeches start as soon as the last people have gotten their dinner and sat down. We are limiting speeches to each set of parents, and the best man and maid of honour. That's it. Keeping it short!

7:30-7:45 - Cake cutting - We do not want to interrupt the party to cut cake! We are doing a small two layer cake to cut (my sister insists it's 2 layers so we can save one layer for our 1 year anniversary), and then cupcakes, so it doesn't have to be served right away.

7:45 - First dance (AKA: A lightsaber battle - yup, we're geeks).

8 pm - Let's get the party started!

I found a timeline online and have tweaked it a bit. There’s timelines online for morning, afternoon and evening weddings. We still need to meet with our officiant to go over how long our ceremony will be but we have an idea of long we want it to be (not long lol). I’ll talk to our caterer as well about the timing for supper as she’ll have a good idea roughly how long it usually takes for our size of wedding but we’ve allotted 1.5hrs for supper. I’m sure times vary depending on plated vs buffet and the amount of guests. Like Stephanie’s mentioned I’m also not worrying about specific timing for the reception just as long we we start on time so guests can eat then the rest will just go in order from there. Our family wont really have much input on our timeline unless we ask them for advice.

I’ve got a rough timeline going but most of it’s going to be adjusted closer to the date. If I were you though, I wouldn’t do it to the exact minute because you will more than likely run behind and if you know the minute somethings supposed to happen, you risk stressing yourself out even more on the big day if it is a little behind.

My officiant had all the times for the ceremony; all we had to do was decide on a start time.

For the reception, I'm not worrying about specific timing. We have an order in which we want to do things, but don't know how long people will eat and don't want to start anything while people are still in line getting food. We will let our MC know our order and he will take it from there, making sure everything runs smoothly.