Wedding Day Timeline

View quoted message Thank you so much! That’s a great idea 😊

I've seen a few weddings where the cake is cut after the meal and the speaches happen while the cake is being served/eaten.

I agree with Kelsie and Casey - share with your photographer! They’ll know the right times to do stuff since most of them have worked a variety of weddings before!

Share you timeline with your photographer, they are honestly great when it comes to timelines.
We did our first dance right after our entrance. This way you had everyone’s attention and people weren’t walking around.
From there we did the first course and then the mother son and father daughter dances right after as we only had our photography for so long!

If you have a photographer, always share the schedule with them because they know what works best, especially with needing reception pictures, and they'll need to know when each part of the reception is taking place.

We're having our speeches as dinner goes on so guests aren't just bored listening to speeches.

We're doing the following schedule as of right now:

5:30 - cocktail hour

6:30 - 9 entrances, dinner, speeches and father/daughter and mother and son dances

9 - first dance

probably 10-11ish we'll have the bouquet and garter toss

1am - lights come on and people go home.

Something like this could work too of course depending what youre doing for the evening:

hair and make up - 10 am
photos - 12:30 pm

travel to ceremony - 2pm

ceremony - 3pm

family photos at ceremony location - 3:45 pm

travel to reception 4:45 pm

cocktail hour - 5 pm

entrances - 5:50 pm

reception - 6 pm

speeches - 6:15 pm

dinner 6:30/6:45 pm ish

first dance 6:45 pm

mom and son dance - 7pm

dad and daughter dance - 7:10 pm

bouquet toss - 7:15 pm

entertainment (ie dancers etc) 7:20 pm

garter toss 7:40 pm

cake cutting 7:55 pm

party - 8 pm

Our ceremony is also at 3pm. We just did our draft for our timeline a couple of weeks ago. This is what we came up with:
12pm - hair and make up for bride and bridesmaids
1:30pm - photographer arrives for getting ready photos
1:45pm - bridesmaids are ready, brides hair and makeup is complete
2pm - bride gets dressed
2:15pm - bridal portraits and photos with bridesmaids
2:30pm - leave for the ceremony
3pm - ceremony
3:30pm - end of ceremony
3:30pm till 6pm - Photos
6pm - Reception
- Supper
6:30pm - Grand entrance
- First dance
- Troy's thank you speech
- Eat a bit and mingle
Between 7:30pm and 8pm - Father Daughter dance
8 - 8:30pm - Best man and maid of honor speeches
9:30pm - Troy's speech to mom and dad
9:45pm - 11:45pm - party/mingle
12am - midnight snack / take down decor
We're also sneaking off for a few minutes to hopefully do a sunset photo. This is just our draft. Troy still has to figure out his timeline for him and the groomsmen that morning.

Plan your time for 1om to start if that give you the time for make up/hair and with the girls too. Pictures time as well with your mom and girls during and after. Time out the ceremony start time and aisle walk to know how long the party plus yourself will take. Pictures with the wedding party and husband after and time of travel to consider. Reception entrance, first dance, speeches and cake cutting time should be taken into effect of the day schedule.
As an option of going church wedding, a civil Officiant can marry you in a shorter time and allow you to get more time for pictures with guests and family.

Hi Jenna,

First of all, Welcome to the WW community! I have been to several weddings where the bride and groom do their first dance after they the bridal party and themselves have been introduced. That way if you are not having a photographer for the whole reception he/she can capture it, as well as no one will miss out. Also they had the father/daughter and mother/son dance between courses, as everyone is already seated and not getting antsy to start the party. You could also do the cake cutting before you sit down for dinner if you plan to serve that as your dessert. To be honest the weddings I have attended most of the people watching the cake cutting were close family and friends, there were lots that I missed because we would be getting a drink or getting air. It is really hard to wrangle in a lot of people when the party gets going. Depending on how many speeches you are going to have you could start them during dessert and you can make your speech last and at the end add something along the lines of “now let’s get on the dance floor/start the party!” I am planning to have our first dance as soon as we come in and the father/daughter mother/ son between courses. Also because it will only be myself and fiancé doing a speech we will say something to open up the dance floor. As for our cake cutting we will be pretending to do it before the guests enter the reception, as the photographer is only booked until dinner starts. Then our venue will tell us when they are ready to serve our “midnight” table and we will cut into it for real, but we won’t be announcing it that is just our personal preference. I hope this helps!

Jenna...I know that on weddings it will never be minute by minute! If the main thing is to make dance and cake cutting early,then do it.

6.30 supper and till 21.00 I guess...and during that time will have speeches...and also you can have dance during that time or after supper...as opening of dance floor. And cake as well. And you also can advice guests, we will cut cake now, but feel free to eat it later.