Planning a wedding can be super difficult because usually it’s your first wedding you’ve ever planned! Sure, you may have friends, family, bridal party members who have planned a wedding before, but there are so many variables that make each wedding day unique.
One major aspect that has many brides stumped is: how do you plan a timeline and how to you decide what time to have all of the events at?
This is where our expert advice comes in!
As you may have suspected based on the title of this post, SUNSET is actually the most important time of your wedding day.
Sunset is something that CANNOT be changed and you must base all of your other timing decisions on the sun.
So, how do you use the sunset to plan your wedding day?
First of all, you can actually Google the sunset time for your wedding day! Yep, even if it’s like a year in advance!
General rule: sunset happens earlier in the day during the spring, late fall, and winter. Sunset happens later in the day in the summer.
Step 1: Google sunset time on your wedding day.
Step 2: Decide if you want sunset photos:
If you have a summer wedding where sunset is in the 9-10pm range, you really don’t have to worry too much about timing unless you want sunset photos. Wild Soul Weddings offers 10 hour full day packages, which means if you want sunset photos, you will have to do golden hour photos about 1-2 hours before sunset.
If you are having a spring, late fall, or winter wedding, sunset can range from 4-7pm. Again, if you want sunset photos, you will need to factor that into how long you have your photographer for.
Step 3:
Plan your wedding ceremony at least 4 hours before sunset. Here’s why:
Your ceremony will be anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes; if you have a receiving line, that takes about 15-30 minutes. Your photographer will want at least 1-1.5 hours between the end of your receiving line until your grand entrance to get fun photos, and you will probably want to stop somewhere on the party bus. You have to allot around 1 hour of dinner before you do speeches. After speeches and before your dances is a perfect time for sunset photos. Then once you’re done, you can do into your special dances.
This is most important to do if you have limited daytime hours, such as a spring, late fall, or winter wedding.
Step 4: Once your ceremony and dinner times are planned, we can help you finish your timeline.
To recap:
-Sunset is the only time you cannot change on your wedding day.
-Google the time of sunset on your wedding day.
-Your ceremony should be at least 4 hours before sunset if you want sunset photos during your reception.
So there you have it! A quick wedding day timeline planning tip that will hopefully help you maximize the sunny hours of the day!
xoxo,
Wild Soul Weddings
Iowa Wedding Photographer
Waterloo, Iowa Wedding photographer
Cedar Falls, Iowa Wedding photographer