How to plan a wedding timeline that gives you photographs

Most couples build their wedding timeline around the venue's requirements and then hope the photographs work out. Move three things and they almost always do.

Follow the light, not the clock

The hour before sunset is worth more than any other hour of the day. Find out when the sun sets on your date, then work backwards. Even fifteen minutes stolen from dinner is enough for the portraits you'll frame.

Give getting-ready more room than you think

Hair and make-up run late almost every time. An extra thirty minutes of buffer costs nothing and prevents the one thing that genuinely damages a gallery: rushing into the ceremony.

Do family groups immediately after the ceremony

Everyone is in one place exactly once, and it is right then. Write a list of no more than ten groupings, give it to a loud relative, and the whole thing takes twelve minutes instead of an hour.

Protect twenty minutes for the two of you

Not for me — for you. It's often the only quiet stretch of the day, and it is where the pictures you'll actually hang come from.

A sample shape

1. Getting ready — two hours, unhurried
2. Ceremony
3. Family groups — fifteen minutes, straight after
4. Drinks and candids — one hour
5. Couple portraits — twenty minutes at golden hour
6. Dinner, speeches, dancing

Send me your draft timeline whenever you have one. I'll mark it up and send it back — that's included with every wedding.