This winter, Nathan Desch Photography is collaborating with some of the area’s top wedding venues and vendors to create a series of articles and guides to help newly engaged couples plan their dream wedding. If you missed our first article, you can find it here: How To Plan a Memorable Wedding in 2025.
Today, we’re showing you some of our favorite wedding timeline planning hacks to help you make the most of your wedding day. You see, there is a fine line between building in buffers of time vs sitting around waiting for the next thing to take place. In this wedding planning guide, we’re going to share some tips and tricks to creating a wedding day timeline that works for you and your guests (and vendors).
Let’s dive in!
1. Trust Your Wedding Professionals
Kaci from Simple Soiree sums it up in such a simple way by saying, “Hire a wedding planner! It’s our job to ensure that everyone is on the same page, even before wedding day!“. The key takeaway here is to make sure all of your key vendors are on the same page with the fixed parts of the day, but then lean on each of them in such a way where you’re allowing them to influence the part of the day they have domain over. This is exactly why you hire a planner!
(Pro tip: I’ve worked with planners who stood around on their phones all day and disappeared when they were needed, but I’ve also worked with some who were an absolute asset on the day to the entire wedding team- Simple Soiree is phenomenal and is a great place to start. If you need additional resources, check out our preferred vendor list.)
When I am connecting with couples and guiding them through the timeline process, it’s usually in relation to when makeup should end so that we have enough time pre-ceremony for pictures. It’s a perfectly valid question and I always breathe a sign of relief when couples ask me.
So here is what I say- “If you’re having a first look, we’ll want to start that two hours before the ceremony (assuming there is no travel between locations), so plan to have hair and makeup wrapped up an hour before that (3 hours before the ceremony).” From here, the bride can go back to her makeup team and say, “We need to be done with all hair and makeup at XX:XX.” Then you can trust your hair and makeup team to plan backwards from there.
The key here is allowing each vendor to have domain over the parts of the day they are directly responsible for, but keep the other vendors in the loop as well- preferably through your coordinator.
If you have a planner, connect with them first. If you don’t talk to your photographer and they’ll walk you through all of this in relation to how they work.
2. Stay Organized Leading Up to The Wedding
Whether you have a day of coordinator, planner, or neither, one thing you can do is ensure that at every stage of the day, all of the necessities are accounted for. Is transportation for all people figured out? Do you knowhow all VIPs are getting from points A to B and B to C throughout the day? Don’t leave this to chance.
Do you know how all VIPs are being fed throughout the day? Brings snacks and hydration for everyone or assign someone to handle this for you. I have seen many wedding days go off the rails because a groomsman decided to do a Wawa run when he wasn’t supposed to… Or the wedding party having to take five Ubers to go between locations. Don’t wing this part of the day!
Pro tip- You can have a fringe VIP handle this kind of thing for you. Do you have a sister-in-law who you like, but just didn’t make the cut as a bridesmaid? She is the perfect person to ask to help with this as it shows your level of trust with her.
3. Remain Flexible
Even if you do all things the perfect way in planning your wedding day timeline, things are inevitably going to pop up that were unplanned. Jesse from Baker Event Co shares, “Hire vendors who can make a great plan, but also have good “audibles”. If dinner is a little late, have a DJ who’s ready to move forward with toasts (after checking with coordinator and photographers of course).”
I totally agree- You want to work with a team who has seen it all and knows how to handle everything from a slight hiccup to a major catastrophe. Lisa and Doug from The Pump House B&B said it like this, “Leave room for error. Something is bound to change or go off the rails. Some of our most memorable weddings were not planned. A downpour of rain, traveling bar stuck in traffic…“. A question you can ask all potential vendors in your vetting process is, “What is the worst thing you’ve ever had to deal with at a wedding and how did you handle it?” If a vendor tells you they’ve never dealt with anything going wrong, they haven’t been doing this long enough or they aren’t being truthful with you.
Stuff happens, but it doesn’t have to derail your day. Don’t let it!
4. Avoid Over-scheduling the Events
(Planned)
Jesse, from Baker Event Co also added, “Packing tons of “fun” moments into the party like champagne towers, photo moments, etc. Many times we already have your guests lost in the music, but we keep interrupting them to announce something “fun”- they were already having fun dancing but now they have to stop. After being interrupted too many times, guests will lose interest and sit down, hang at the bar, etc.”
You want your guests to have things to do, but this is not a 5 year old’s birthday party where you need to keep people occupied the entire time before sending them away with their goodie bag. People love dancing the night away, having conversations amongst their tables and just relaxing- Don’t feel the need to do every extra wedding add on you’ve seen.
This is also a really great way to save some cash in the process. Don’t add fringe services unless they align well with making your wedding day unique to you!
(Unplanned)
Marnie, from Drumore Estate mentioned, “Don’t do a “receiving line!” Put sunset on your timeline” when asked about one of the more common timeline mistakes couples make in planning their wedding.
While doing a receiving line may be something that was a thoughtful tradition in the past, now, it’s a surefire way for you to burn through 45 minutes if it wasn’t intentionally planned into your wedding schedule. Most of the time, they happen my accident as the couple leave the ceremony. Mom and dad walk by and give the couple a hug- Totally normal. Then grandma and Aunt Sue give their well wishes. Next it’s your friends from work who are over the moon with your wedding dress… 45 minutes later, you realize that cocktail hour only has 15 minutes left and you need to get bustled still.
And all of that is with the assumption you had a first look and your pictures were done- Now imagine that wasn’t the case!
The line about having the sunset on your timeline is especially helpful if you’re an introvert and will likely need to step away from the reception at some point. By planning some sunset photos into your timeline, you’re giving yourself a scheduled respite to get some fresh air and recharge your mental batteries before the night continues.
5. Conclusion
When planning your wedding timeline, you don’t have to go it alone. Lean on your wedding vendors to guide you through the process and make sure to defer to each of them during the times of day they’re specifically overseeing. It wouldn’t make sense for the hair and makeup team to give strong takes for your reception timeline, just like it wouldn’t make sense for your photographer to tell you how long eyelash extensions should take. You get the idea.
Plan for all of the logistics that are not directly under the purview of the rest of your team- Transportation, snacks/meals, drinks, lugging belongings from place to place. This by itself will reduce a load of wedding day stress!
Be flexible, but more importantly, have vendors who you know can handle the unplanned on your day. Then let them problem solve for you!
Finally, don’t feel the need to pack in all kinds of frills and events on your day. One or two is great, but you likely don’t need a petting zoo, magician, fireworks, live painting, belly dancers, food trucks, a mariachi band, cigar bar, and photo booth all at the same wedding. This isn’t a carnival for heaven’s sake.
Of course, if you need a hand with anything timeline related or want to connect with some of the vendors and venues we know and trust to guide you along in your wedding planning journey, don’t hesitate to reach out! We’re here for you!
Contributors:
Baker Event Co: Central PA’s top DJ and rental service
Pump House B&B: One of my favorite venues I worked at in 2024
Drumore Estate: One of Lancaster’s top wedding venues
Simple Soiree: On my very small list of preferred wedding planners
