Wedding Time Frame
Timing your wedding
With many couples not experienced in photography or weddings, planning and timing is very important for your wedding day. Many people guess at the time things will take and event locations may want to tell you what they think but it you must plan the day correctly so that you can enjoy the day as it will fly past you with out you noticing.
After the location the photographer is one of the most expensive costs for a wedding and will be the only record that you will have from your wedding day, so it is essential that you give time for the photography on your wedding day.
Depending on what you have selected for your wedding photography cover from your photographer will depend on the time requirements.
reportage /photo journalism is one of the quickest photography styles, Fashion styled wedding photography is one of the slowest.
The other events
From many years of wedding photography experience we have become aware of the time that certain parts of the wedding take to complete, this may give you an idea of your wedding day before you think of the photography.
Weddings ceremonies normally take two different times, registry offices are about 20 minutes and churches are around 45 minutes.
You always should consider travel times and give a 15 minute gap between the photography sections and stages if the wedding just in case something happens.
Breakfast (meal)
This can differ between wedding venues due to staff and kitchen styles, it would be a good idea to agree the service levels (SLA) in your contract with something like one member of staff per table.
To give you some sort of time frame, a buffet can take just as long as a sit down meal depending on the wedding party size.
a 3/4 course takes around 3 hours for large wedding (around 75 guests) but is not normally less than 2 hours.
Speeches can take a lot of time, I have heard some last 2 minutes and I have heard them last for 45 minutes.
The wedding Photography time frame
In this section of the wedding timing page, I will talk about the wedding photography times to give you some idea of planning your wedding day.
Wedding Preparations
Wedding preparations can seem to take a long time, but essentially you will want a photographer about 30 minutes before the car/cart to due to collect you for the bridal photographs. Unless you wish to have photographs of your make-up artist and before you put on your wedding dress.
The guys would want a photographer around 40 minutes before the bride and Bridesmaids leave depending if they are leaving from a bar.
The church/registrar
For details and the guest arriving, the photographer will need to be at the church 30 minutes before the ceremony starts and at least 20 minutes before the bride arrives.
This time may differ if you are having the preparations photographed, as normally the groom and best-man photographs are taken at this point as well, so the timing has to be right.
The signing
The signing of the registry only takes around 5 minutes, however, with guests wanting to take their photos, this can take much longer, I have seen this hold everything up for about 15 minutes just with the guests taking photographs on their mobile phones.
After the ceremony
Directly after the ceremony we take just a few shots as you exit the registry/church. Then we leave you around 15 minutes to be congratulated by your family and friends before we start shooting again.
The groups
For most weddings of around 65 – 85 guests the photography takes around one hour. We shoot groups as family formals but mix this with candid reportage photo’s, so there is a little break between the formal photo’s.
I would recommend around 1.5 hours if you have more guests or if you are having fashion styled photography.
Fashion style will be more focused on the bridal party, and can take a little longer. If you are pressed for time we often split the shoot between the wedding venue and the reception venue, or if it in the the same venue we make split this photo shoot to allow you to enjoy the day, normally this can start at 20 minutes an may take an hour, but being as it is split, the full amount of time will differ between Weddings.
The personal session
The personal photo session is just with the bride and the groom, this is normally the most ordered photos that that we have ordered. Depending on the location of the wedding venue and the reception venue as well as the weather and lighting, will depend where and when the shoots take place.
If the shoot is before the breakfast, we try to limit this to around 20 minutes; for evening personal sessions this is around 40 minutes.
We may shoot both in the evening and at both locations giving you around an hour photo session.
If you have bad weather, or we do not think that we do have a good range of images, we may shoot on another day or at a time more suited. This can be the day after the wedding or a few days after you return from honeymoon; if you haven’t booked a honeymoon photographer as the photography shoot will be held during the honeymoon.
The breakfast
This is normally shot in real time and does not effect the wedding at all.
With the cake cutting we stage a photo at the start and shoot a real cutting as well, this is due to the guests climbing in and their flash photography that would normally destroy the photos (I have proof 
)
The reception
The reception is shot in real time and doesn’t really interfere with the fold of events during the reception. The only interference may be a late photo shoot as the light changes which is around 20 minutes during the sun set.
Also do not for get the tossing of the bridal bouquet.
We are normally there after an hour has passed from the first dance.
Over all
During the day there will be around 10 hours of photography, only 4-6 hours of the photography you will notice takes part of your day.
The main bulk of the photography take place after the ceremony and is around 1 hour, the personal shoot is also around 1 hour and can fall after the ceremony or before or after the wedding breakfast, depending on the timing of the events.
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