Your Wedding Day Timeline

Ever wondered how much photography coverage you should have on your wedding day? We’re here to help! When you meet us for coffee at our studio, one of the main things we go over is your tentative schedule. We start from your ceremony and reception time before filling the gaps.

Of course there are so many factors that can change your schedule, but we thought we would provide you with a sample timeline that will give you an idea of how we break down your day so we can get the photos that you’ll want and forever cherish!

BRIDAL DETAILS 11:00AM – 11:45PM

Before the big day, we remind you to have all your details ready for us to photograph first thing in the morning. Your dress, shoes, jewellery, invitations and more are an important part of the story and we want to spend time with them! We haven’t forgotten the groom, we like playing with his details too!

It’s how we like to start our day – playing around and getting our creative juices running.

GETTING READY 11:45AM – 12:30PM

By this point, your hair and makeup is pretty much close to being done because who wants to be photographed half done up? If you’re planning on asking some special ladies in your life to help you get ready, they should be all dressed and ready to be photographed themselves! From getting into your dress to reading a letter from your future husband to some portraits, we’ll need the time to do it all!

Your groom is just as important so we’ll be capturing his prep as well!

FIRST LOOK 12:45PM – 1:00PM

This is one of our favourite parts of the wedding day! We will find the perfect location for your First Look prior to the getting ready portion of the day. Don’t stress about that one bit! We will make sure the location allows you to have that moment together. Yes, it says 15 minutes, but we would never rush you during this special time. We’re ready when you’re ready.

PORTRAITS 1:00PM – 2:30PM

After you take your time with the First Look, we will begin taking a few romantic portraits of you two while the initial excitement is still present.  The location is something we discuss beforehand, but you can also leave it up to us! Remember, the LIGHT determines the spots we shoot so sometimes the portrait locations may change the day-of.   As we shoot these portraits, the bridal party can start making their way over for bridal party portraits!

BRIDAL PARTY 2:30PM – 3:10PM

Now it’s time for the Bridal Party shots! We buffer in extra time throughout the day just in case we have some unexpected things that hold us up!  One way to make sure we stay on schedule for bridal party portraits is to have someone put the boutonnieres on the guys BEFORE they arrive for portraits.

During bridal party portraits, we will make sure to take some great shots of the guys and girls both separately AND together! Depending on the size of the bridal party, this part can take longer or shorter!

No bridal party? Great! We’ll take all the time we need for portraits! The more time you give us, the better!

FAMILY PORTRAITS 3:30PM – 4:10PM 

Family formals ideally take place before the ceremony so you won’t need to worry about it after. After the ceremony, you’ll be surrounded by greetings and love, and we don’t want to take you away from that. Be with your guests who have travelled far and join them at cocktail hour!

We’ll need about 30-40 minutes for family formals and we will ask you to prepare a list with all the family combinations that you would like. To make this part as efficient as possible, we recommend assigning a family member to call out the combinations from the list. Oh and make sure everyone shows up on time and in the right location!

We also recommend shooting these portraits outdoors if possible so that they resemble more natural family portraits, especially if the ceremony location is dark!

CEREMONY DETAILS 4:10PM – 4:30PM

We just need a little bit of time before guests start arriving to photograph the ceremony details. We’re all about getting clean shots, and having no one in our frame would do just that!

CEREMONY 5:00PM – 5:30PM

It’s time to get married!! Most ceremonies are 30 minutes long.  If your ceremony is longer than 30 minutes, we’ll make adjustments to the timeline! Cherish these moments! Your ceremony will pass by so quickly!

COCKTAIL HOUR / RECEPTION DETAILS 5:30PM – 6:30PM

We understand that cocktail hour is, in fact, an hour long, but we won’t be covering it the whole time! At this time, we can also take more “just married” portraits especially since the light is usually the best at this time of day! Another reason we only cover half an hour is so that we can also have time to photograph your reception details before the guests are seated.

It’s great if the reception room is ready in time for the guests to come in, but it is actually incredibly important for us if it’s ready even before that! You’ve invested a lot in this part of your day and we want to make sure to shoot the decor untouched, without coats and purses on any seats.

RECEPTION 6:30PM – 9:00PM

This is when the bridal party lines up for introductions and the party begins!! By this part of the day, our timeline isn’t as strict. We basically follow your program and focus on candid moments of your guests.

Our packages start with 10 hours of coverage so that we can be present for the main events of the reception. Once the dance floor is in full swing, we won’t need more than half an hour to cover it. The photos will get repetitive and you might regret what we might capture at this point of the night.

If you’re interested in additional coverage, you can always add more hours to your package either before or on the day of your wedding. Promise we won’t leave without saying goodbye!

Keep in mind that a lot of wedding timelines do not look like this, and they don’t have to! There are so many factors to consider and that’s okay.

As long as the amount of time we have allocated towards each part of the day is the same, you can switch it around so that it makes sense for you.