Wedding Timeline: A Complete Day-of Schedule That Works
A wedding timeline is the backbone of your entire wedding day. Without one, vendors arrive at different times, the photographer misses key moments, and the couple spends the day reacting instead of celebrating. With a solid timeline for wedding day logistics, everyone knows where to be and when — and you actually get to enjoy your own reception.
This guide builds a typical wedding timeline that works for ceremonies starting anywhere from late morning through evening. We’ll cover the wedding day of timeline structure, what changes in an evening wedding timeline, and how to add buffer time so a single delay doesn’t cascade through the entire schedule.
Building a Typical Wedding Timeline: Step by Step
Start your wedding timeline by locking in two anchor times: ceremony start and reception end. Work backward from the ceremony to schedule hair, makeup, and getting-ready photos. Work forward from ceremony to place the cocktail hour, dinner, toasts, first dance, and cake cut.
A typical wedding timeline for a 5pm ceremony looks like this:
- 10:00am — Hair and makeup begins (bride and bridesmaids)
- 1:00pm — Getting-ready photos with family and wedding party
- 2:30pm — First look (if doing one); wedding party portraits
- 4:00pm — Guests arrive; ceremony begins at 5:00pm
- 5:45pm — Cocktail hour; couple completes remaining portraits
- 6:45pm — Grand entrance; dinner service begins
- 7:30pm — Toasts, first dance, parent dances
- 8:30pm — Dancing begins; cake cut around 9:00pm
- 10:00pm — Last dance; guests depart
Build 15–20 minute buffers after hair and makeup and before the ceremony. Hair running over by 30 minutes is the most common cause of compressed portrait time. If you protect that buffer, the rest of the timeline for wedding day holds even when individual elements run long.
Evening Wedding Timeline Adjustments
An evening wedding timeline shifts everything later but compresses the outdoor window for natural light photography. A ceremony starting at 7pm means golden hour is either right before the ceremony (which creates a scheduling conflict) or doesn’t exist at all for outdoor portraits.
For an evening wedding timeline, plan your wedding party portraits to happen 90 minutes before ceremony start while you still have some ambient light. Use off-camera flash or a video light for reception portraits after dark. Your photographer should have a plan for this — ask specifically how they handle indoor and low-light portraits before you book.
The wedding day of timeline for an evening event also changes catering logistics. Guests expect a full dinner rather than a cocktail-hour-into-dinner flow. Plan for passed appetizers during cocktail hour (60–75 minutes), then a seated dinner of 75–90 minutes, before the dance floor opens. Toasts during dinner keep the evening moving without stopping the flow.