Typical Wedding Day Timeline UK

10 years into being a UK wedding photographer and I feel like I know a thing or two about what makes a good wedding day timeline.

When you’re sitting down to plan out your wedding and talking to suppliers most couples have zero idea about timings! Unless you’ve been married before or been part of lots of weddings it is kind of hard to gage how long things take. One of the things I include for all my couples is a useful planning guide, plus they get me on the end of the phone to run any questions past. But it’s still good to have the ‘typical’ timeline written down so you know roughly how long things take.

Wedding Prep

The point before the ceremony, when you are getting ready. The amount of time you will need for this will vary hugely so I’m not going to give you a specific time here but the best person to talk to will be your MUA and hair stylist (if you’re having those) as they can direct you on how long you will need to allow. Obviously if there’s a big group of people all getting ready together, you’ll need more time than just two people. Allow more time if kids are involved. You want to aim to be dressed and ready 30mins before you need to leave. Or 20mins before your photographer needs to leave, if you want photos of things like a reveal to your family or portraits of you in your family home etc.

Arrival at the venue

As a wedding photographer I always aim to be at the venue 30mins before the ceremony starts. This is the normal time that the person getting to the venue first (often the groom) will get there and guests will be told to arrive. It gives everyone a bit of time to settle in, a bit of leeway for all those late guests and allows for some relaxed photos to capture the pre-ceremony build up. The person who’s arriving at the venue last (often the bride) will normally get there 15mins before the ceremony to check in with the registrar or just 10 mins before if it’s a place of worship.

Ceremony

Civil ceremonies, like registry offices are normally 30minutes. Church services and celebrants normally around 45 minutes and other religious services can be hours depending on traditions.

Exit and Confetti

Don’t forget to build in time to exit your ceremony and do confetti. If you have a lot of guests and are greeting each of them as you come out, this can take around half an hour!! But if you just get everyone out swiftish and make a confetti line straight away it can just be 10 minutes.

Group Photos

Allow around 20 minutes for these in typical circumstances. This would be be your classics, like wedding party, immediate family and the mini groups within those. For more complex arrangements and more group photos than your standard 5/6 groups then allow around an extra 5 mins per photo. For the full group photo allow around 10 minutes for rounding people. If you have a small guest list then this could be reduced to just a couple of minutes! To be on the safe side, I say allow 30minutes overall.

Getting between venues

Don’t forget to build in time for travel between locations, factor in guests getting lost, traffic, herding people onto mini buses, getting people out of car parks etc.

Reception pre-meal

A good amount of time between the guests arriving at the reception venue and the meal is 90minutes. Enough time for group photos and natural pictures and not too long that people start getting too drunk to eat!!

Meal

For a full sized wedding with 3 courses allow 2 hours. For a buffet style meal or smaller guest list then an hour or 90mins can be enough.

Speeches

30-45 minutes tends to be the average for these depending on how many people are giving a speech.

Couple photos

I always allow 30minutes for these but will often split this time, so maybe 15 mins after group photos earlier in the day, then another 15 minutes at sunset. If doing them all at once I try to keep it to a max of 25mins although I can’t say I really clock watch but I do feel conscious of keeping couples away from their guests for too long!

Party

This is the easy bit as you normally just plan this until the end!! The only thing I would say is don’t leave too long after the meal or being start getting a bit ‘sluggish’ It’s always better to keep the gap smaller before party time so it keeps up the fun energy!!