After choosing a date and venue for your wedding, one of the first things you’ll need to figure out is the timing of the day. How long do you want your wedding to be? What time will it begin and end?

Start this conversation by imagining how you’d like your wedding day to flow and taking note of any restrictions set by your venue or other vendors. For example, if the venue limits your wedding to 5 hours, you could set aside 1.5 hour for the Ceremony + Cocktail Hour and 3.5 hours for the Reception.

Once you know how long your entire wedding will be, the next step is to decide what time your Ceremony will begin. This will be the time you list on your invitations, so it’s important to decide this at least a few months in advance! From this time, you can work backwards to decide when you and your vendors will arrive, and what time your Reception will end.

Choosing a Ceremony time may sound simple, but there’s actually a lot to consider! like important factors – like the location and time of year – play a HUGE role in not only your photos, but many other parts of the day as well.

If you don’t do a first look, we’ll need to take all of your bride & groom photos and full wedding party photos after the ceremony. This means we’ll need more time after the ceremony before the sun goes down. You’ll also enter your reception a little later.

• If you do a First Look – start your ceremony 1.5 hours before sunset 
• If you don’t do a First Look – start your ceremony 2 hours before sunset 

It can be helpful to decide early on whether or not you’d like to do a First Look. This is a decision to make together. I provide my clients with lots of information and advice about how this can affect both your experience and your timeline. 

If there’s full cloud coverage, in many ways, we can be more flexible with locations and timing. Clouds make the lighting even and smooth, casting fewer shadows across your face. However, cloudy skies often mean it starts to feel dark earlier than the actual sunset time If the sun sets at 7:30pm, it may begin to feel dark by 7:05pm on a cloudy day.

Based on your wedding day vision, I hope that you find these ideas and resources helpful in the planning process. 

I realize that this time can be overwhelming as all of the wedding day details start coming together. Remember that I am always here for you and ready to assist in any way that I can! 

If there are any questions I can answer or additional resources I can provide, please reach out!

With Love.

Adachukwu