Order of the Wedding!

So far I have this worked out (picture below) but I think it’s also your preference. Some ppl have the first dance right away, others wait till after dinner, some do speeches during dinner and some don’t etc! ☺️

You can do it anyway you want!!

make an itinerary and add everything happening for the evening and the time and play around with it. for our wedding were doing wedding party entrances, then my parents then his then us and then right into our same day edits and then speeches will be later on. cake cutting were not doing as a huge thing were just gonna do a small cut for photos when everyone is eating.

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Hahahaha right? I had no idea where to start or how to even begin on programming everything! Hopefully these replies helped you!!

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I agree with you completely, I want to get speeches and dinner over with as soon as possible so that I am able to get the party started!

I am looking to hire a wedding photographer and videographer for approximately 12 hours to shoot the entire day and process, so I'm flexible with the timing. I love your order, thank you so much for giving me insight!

Congrats by the way you're getting married next month! Hopefully everything goes magical for you!

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Oh my gosh, couldn't have said it better! Thank you so much for the advice, I think I'm planning on doing something similar to you! Congrats by the way & I hope everything goes by smoothly for you!

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Thank you so much that helped a lot!

I think it depends on your timing as well.

We were just at a wedding where dinner wasn't served till 7:00.

The bride and groom did their first dance and all speeches were done while everyone was eating.

I think it worked out.

Like Meaghan said the order will depend on your photographer and how long there are there, and how much you want them to capture.

For us, we only have our photographer an hour after dinner starts. I am planning on doing cake cutting either right before our big entrances, or as the first course is being served.

So we will be doing our entrances, and then first dance right away. This way you have everyone seated, and not walking around while your first dance is happening. From here our MC will do his opening speech with the house rules, a quick toast, and then someone will say grace.

We have 3 courses being served (Pasta, Main, Dessert) so speeches and the remaining dances will be in between there. Father of the bride, and father of the groom speech, along with the dances will be after pasta. My MOH and BM will do their speeches after the main. While dessert is being served we are doing a slide show, and then our thank you speech will be right after that.

We are doing doing a bouquet or garter toss, but those are usually after dancing has started, and people need a little bit of a break.

It is your wedding, and you can order the events which ever way works best for you and your venue & vendors

One of my favourite weddings ever had the (limited) speeches during dinner. I like the idea of having them while the food comes out, too. I also think having them during dinner or while dinner comes out encourages shorter speeches (I've been to a wedding where the speeches went on for over 2 hours after dinner ended. Not fun and a lot of people left before dancing even began).

I think some of the order depends on photography package, too. If your photographer won't be there the entire reception you may want to do cake cutting early. I've seen cake cutting even done before dinner so the photographer was there to capture it (also works well if the cake is dessert). Other times it's cut after the dancing has begun, but my experience is that it can be hard to interrupt the dancing once it's started and doing so can signal the wrap up of the reception even if that's not intended.

I think my favourite order of events is:

Introduction
brief welcome by MC
Cake cutting while dinner is served
dinner and brief speeches
First dance and any other special dances (I've also seen a reception bogged down by way too many special dances and people get antsy)
Bouquet toss, if you're doing it, is usually part way into the dancing.

I'm pretty sure that is not the traditional order but as a guest it's what I like best.

Thank goodness you asked this! We're also trying to figure out programming! We just want everything to flow and mesh well and open the dance floor ASAP 😛😛