Darby Elizabeth Photography » Tips and Hints

Planning Your Wedding Timeline

darby elizabeth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:32:25 +0000

Planning Your Wedding Timeline

There are so many wonderful guides online to help you plan and map out your wedding day timeline.

This timeline from Liene Stevens over at Blue Orchid is a great guide to help you remember to include key events into your timeline that you might otherwise neglect. Also here’s a fabulous mock up timeline from WeddingBee that show’s how a wedding timeline might look for brides to have a starting point in planning their day.

I thought it might be fun to add my thoughts as a photographer to these great minds on things to consider when drafting your wedding timeline. And since I’m a photographer, most of my suggestions tend to be about the photography heavy portions of the day!

Family Photos: If you have very small families you can get away with 15-20 minutes for this sections of the day. I usually suggest having 30-45 minutes set aside just for family photos. We usually don’t get all of this time due to outside factors such as a family member being late or MIA at the time of photos. Also it’s common to add extra group photos as we are shooting. I love adding extra groups as I come from a huge family and always want to have the shot of me and my cousins of my mom and her sisters, but it does add extra time so buffering your time-line to allow for these kinds of situations is a great idea.

I also love to shoot the family photos before the wedding when the bride and groom are seeing each other prior to the wedding ceremony. One great advantage to taking all of the family photos prior to the wedding ceremony is that everyone can enjoy and mingle during the cocktail hour!

Bridal Party Photos: I love bridal party photo time because it’s just the bride and groom with their best friends! My biggest suggestion for the bridal party photos is to have an extra person on hand to be the drink runner or errand person should someone be missing. One of the hardest parts of shooting a large group of fun young people is that someone is always running off to do something. By having an extra hand it will help keep things moving along at a swift pace. Bridal party photos are one of the liveliest and fun times of the entire day. I usually like having around 20-30 minutes just with my bridal party, though I’ll always take more time when I can get it!

Bride and Groom Photos: Well your photographer is not going to complain if you give them tons of time to shoot photos of the two of you. I love to have at least thirty minutes set aside just for the couple at a minimum. While that might sound like plenty of time we usually don’t get all of that time to ourselves. On your wedding day everyone wants to give you a hug and a kiss and tell you how good looking you are, which is so much fun but takes a few moments here and there. Buffering your time together will allow you and your guest to mingle as your photographer takes you around the venue while allowing your photographer to get all of the shots that you fell in love with and hired them to get! If you have the ability try to set aside 60 minutes for your couple photoshoot so that you have some of that buffer time built in.

Also if you are seeing each other prior to the wedding it is a little easier to maximize that couple photoshoot time. When shooting the couple photoshoot after the ceremony during cocktail hour plan on spending 15-20 minutes signing the wedding license and being congratulated!

End of the Wedding: One area of the wedding that is kind of unclear is how long to have your photographer stay at your wedding. While this varies for your event needs and ceremony time my general suggestion is 10 or 10:30 and here’s why. By 10 or 10:30 the bar has usually been open for 4-5 hours and your guests are probably becoming a little adverse to bright flashes and just want to relax with their cake and coffee. This suggestion is exactly that, a suggestion, but I’ve found it to be pretty true for most weddings.

Similar Posts:

The Ultimate Wedding List Part 1: 25 Inspirational Links

darby elizabeth — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:37:23 +0000

There’s a website my husband, Jonathan, just loves called Dark Roasted Blend and they do something called Link Latte which is just a collection of links to fantastic and interesting things.

I loved the idea of gathering links that I run across and sharing them with my brides!

Wedding Planning Guides – Liene Stevens of Blue Orchid Designs shares the mother load of information for the planning bride.
Style Me Pretty - A fantastic resource for wedding ideas across the board featuring wedding planning stories and images of real weddings.
On hiring a photographer - An interesting article from Seattle Bride about why you should hire an experianced wedding photographer.
ABC’s of wedding planning by Life Design Events is an on going series which shares different tips and information about weddings from sand ceremonies to ice sculptures.
Wedding Dress Advice by Destiny’s Bride. The blog features helpful and informative articles such as the purpose and history of the wedding veil.
Wedding Invitations by The Invitation Lady. Rikki makes really amazing and impressive wedding announcements.
Vintage Birdcage Veils on Etsy by this gal Donna, very cool handmade stuff can be purchased on Etsy these days!
Video Wedding Venue Tours by My Wedding Film can be watched at Arizona Wedding Venues. They are always updating it so be sure to check back!
Wedding DIY by Elizabeth Anne Designs - The site is also a great resource for wedding planning.
DIY Fabric Flower Boutonnieres – From Once Wed another fantastic wedding resource site. These flowers are just too cute to not consider!
Wedding Planning Checklist from Real Simple. I liked how this particular list was put together.
Hidden Wedding Costs from Blue Orchid. This article is about the hidden costs that can pop up when planning your wedding.
Choosing a wedding time – Advice on picking a wedding time. My personal addition to this advice is view the wedding location, if outdoors, the previous year to see what the sun is like that time of day. It can be helpful to scoot the ceremony time back or forward a little to make sure you don’t have to melt or squint through the entire ceremony!
Color Palettes – Just a fun collections of color to help you see fun color options!
What neckline is right for me from Twirl, a bridesmaid dress boutique.
Plated vs Food Stations – Heather Crabtree from Outstanding Occasions answers some questions about the pro’s and con’s.
Wedding Cakes – A fun collection of wedding cakes from Martha Stewart.
Seeing each other before the wedding – One planner’s advice on why she thinks it’s a good idea to see each other prior to the wedding.
Hire For Personality – Great article from Jen at Imoni Event’s about hiring for personality!
Inspiring wedding invite – This is one of the coolest wedding invites I’ve ever seen. It reminds me to not take life to serious!
Why hire a planner? - A good collection of advice on what a wedding planner can help you do on your wedding day.
Wedding Ideas in Photo – My own collection of amazing wedding ideas. Photos of color schemes as well as wedding dresses, rings, cakes, etc!
Great Local Florist – These two are so talented!
Including vendor meals in your wedding budget – Great article from Liene at Blue Orchid.
Wedding Video - My Wedding Film is hands down Arizona’s best wedding video company.

Similar Posts:

Tips for lacing up the wedding dress

darby elizabeth — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:25:21 +0000

I love how many different types of wedding dresses I get to see in the course of a year. Each and every dress is unique and really represents the personality of that particular bride and wedding. One of my favorite kinds of wedding dresses are those with lace up backs. They always look very elegant and beautiful.

One thing that I’ve noticed in my years as a photographer is that the dresses tend to take longer than most brides have planned. So just as a little tip to help keep your wedding day running smoothly, give yourself a buffer zone from the time you are getting ready and putting on your wedding dress to the time you plan on being anywhere. I’d guess that it can take up to twenty minutes to lace up the dress, so just give yourself a little extra time to avoid any undue stress!

Here are a few photos of a dress lace up from a May wedding at the Montelucia Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

Similar Posts: