How to Schedule Your Photography Time

Wedding photography is a totally personal and unique service for every wedding. This means that no matter what your wedding schedule your wedding photographer should be able to capture all the beautiful, fun and unexpected moments of your wedding day. As a bride or groom, it is still important to plan the wedding photography timeline carefully to ensure that you give the photographer the best chance to get the best possible photos. The amount of time required for wedding photography depends on several factors such as the size of the wedding, the number of locations involved, and the specific shots that you want to capture. Here's a breakdown of how much time you would need for wedding photography.

Getting Ready

1.5 to 2 hours

The getting ready process is a part of the day different from the rest. This is a great part of the day to get you and your bridal party in a more relaxed and natural state and also gives everyone a chance to get used to being photographed. This is also an awesome chance to give the photographer time to get creative photos of all the details of the wedding like shoes, dress and flowers that you have put tons of time and effort into choosing. Typically, getting ready should have at least 1.5 to 2 hours of coverage time. This time might need to be adjusted if your photographer is solo and has to go to two different spots to get the two halves of the bridal party getting prepared for the day.

First Look

20 minutes to 1 hour

The first look is becoming increasingly popular as it allows the couple to have a private moment before the wedding ceremony. It's an emotional and intimate moment that should be captured beautifully. The first look itself only takes a moment so it is great to have more than one photographer there to capture a few angles of the real one-of-a-kind emotions and reactions. This isn't a part of every wedding day but it can be a great way to have a moment together and to make a wedding day schedule work for what you want for your wedding day. Even though the first look itself is a small amount of time you may need to schedule between 20 minutes and an hour depending on how far you need to go by car and walking to get to a good first look location and to set up the meeting of the two of you in a special way.

Bridal Party

20 to 45 minutes

Photos with the bridal party are usually taken immediately after the first look, after the family photos or sometimes spread out throughout the day. These photos can take about 45 minutes, but the time can vary depending on the size of the bridal party and the number of locations involved. You may also need to allow for some travel time. You can spread these photos out throughout the day for example doing some group photos at the end of the time getting ready and then doing the photos of the whole group after the ceremony.

Just the two of you

1.5 - 2 hours

Photographs of the bride and groom alone should take at least an hour, but more time allows for more locations, different lighting and more creativity from the photographers. This is an opportunity to capture some stunning portraits of the couple in their wedding attire, and it's important to allocate enough time for this. These are often the photos people will print so its nice to have lots of options and do this part of the day during the nicest light that your wedding schedule can handle. The best light from the sun will come in the hours leading up to sunset.

Ceremony

30 minutes

The wedding ceremony usually takes about 30 minutes, but it can be longer or shorter depending on the type of ceremony and any additional rituals involved.

Family Photos

Family photos are usually taken immediately after the wedding ceremony, and they can take up to 45 minutes. It's important to create a list of the specific family members that you want to include in the photos to ensure that no one is left out. Obviously this is greatly dependent on how many family members you'd like to include in the family portraits. But sticking to just immediate families is usually a good way to go to keep the family photos within a reasonable amount of time. Wedding guests tend to get a little tired of waiting around to have their photo taken for more than 40 minutes. Your photographer should have good idea of how to make a proper family photo list to ensure that people aren't waiting too long or that people get missed.

Cocktail Hour

1 hour

Guests usually enjoy cocktails and mingling for a few hours while the couple and the wedding party are taking photos. This is an opportunity to capture candid shots of the guests enjoying themselves. The cocktail hour may be any amount of time on the schedule, but it is nice if you can schedule an hour of that time where your photographers can be present to get candid and group photos of your guests.

Dinner

Two hours or longer

Dinner takes about two hours to serve, but it can take longer if there are multiple courses or speeches involved. It's important to plan the photography timeline carefully to ensure that you have enough time to take photos of the speeches, the cake cutting, and any other significant moments during the reception. You can put moments in between courses of the meal to keep the timeline moving along or you may just want to allow people to focus on dinner for a shorter time and then move to the reception once they are done.

Speeches

1 hour

There are usually about five speeches during the reception, and they take about one hour. This time might be spread out between courses of the meal or done all at once back to back. Either way you should budget for the 5 speeches to take about an hour.

Dances

15 minutes - 1 hour

The first dance and the father-daughter, mother-son dance takes about 20 minutes between announcing the dances and getting people together and then the actual dances themselves. These are some of the most memorable moments of the wedding reception, and it's important to capture them beautifully.

End of the night portrait

15 - 30 minutes

End of the night or sunset portraits of just the couple take about 15 to 30 minutes. This is a great opportunity to capture some stunning photos of the couple in beautiful golden hour light, at sunset or even at night. This makes for a great addition to your wedding photo collection especially when making an album. This is a nice way to end the night with the photographers and get a little breather from the busy wedding reception and have some time together as a couple.

Time to consider

There are several other factors to consider when planning your wedding photography timeline. Location changes and drive time can impact the amount of time you need for each section of the day. Additionally, unexpected events such as a random person missing from family photos or unexpected weather can make changes to the timeline. A well planned timeline before the wedding day isn't so that you can make sure the whole day is timed precisely like a military operation, but rather so that you have a realistic idea of how much time you will need under ideal conditions so you can know what is most important to you and how long things will take so you can get back on track if/when things do get a little off from the schedule. On the wedding day the task of keeping things on schedule should be given to someone other than the bride and groom as you should be focused on having a great day! A wedding planner, coordinator or friend should be put in charge of that so that you can enjoy yourselves!