Get Me To The Church On Time - Wedding Day Timings

Wedding day timings.....what a subject this is! Do weddings ever run to time? Well yes, they do but only because of the intervention of one or two people along the way.

Even the best organised bride will lose track of time along the way whilst she's getting ready. So the key to a successful schedule for the day is to know exactly (or as near as humanly possible) how long each part of your day is likely to take.

It's never too early to start preparing things now - so if you are having a hairdresser visit you on the morning then have a trial of your wedding day hair and see how long it takes to achieve the look you want. The same applies for make-up. If however you are going to a salon then you need to have a trial but also a practise run on the same day of the week (& if possible time) as you are getting married. Traffic from your house to the salon will be quite different on a Saturday morning to a Tuesday afternoon for example. Also check that there is nothing happening locally (such as an "important" football match) which may affect traffic conditions not only for you getting places but also for people such a make-up artists, florists, hairdressers, photographers, cars getting to you. If you know of anything happening make sure you alter your suppliers because they may be unaware.

So....we've tackled the things you can do to minimise the chances of you being late due to outside influences but what about the basics of just now long thing are likely to take on the day? You've probably never organised a wedding before so from this point of view probably have no idea whatsoever what to expect. For example - would you have any idea how long it is going to take to get your 100 guests out of the church after the ceremony? (15 to 20 minutes is the answer to this one - could be longer if you have lots of elderly guest of young children).

So here goes with a (very rough!) idea to wedding day timings:

• Bride putting on the dress, assisted by bridesmaids & mum: 15 - 30 minutes (this assumes all makeup etc. has been done first).



• Bride putting on veil & shoes: 5 mins minimum.



• Photographs with bride & dad at house or on way to civil ceremony: 5 - 10 mins minimum.



• Bride exiting car and entering church: 5 mins minimum, add 5 minutes if taking posed photos exiting car and with dad and bridesmaids outside the church.



• Church service: 45 minutes minimum - often longer for Catholic services or where there are a lot of readings.



• Civil ceremony service: 15 - 20 mins depending on how many readings. Remember that the registrar will want to see you both individually before the ceremony and this will take around 5 - 10 minutes each).



• Posed photographs outside the church - add 5 - 10 minutes on if you are having the bells rung as none of the guests or yourselves will be able to either hear the photographer or yourselves speaking. For one group of everyone 10 minutes to get everyone organised. Add around 5 minutes per additional group unless you have a very fast & efficient photographer (such as ourselves!) who with organisation can do this quicker.



• From arriving at the venue to include the drinks reception you should allow a minimum of 1.5 to 2 hrs prior to the time you wish to sit down for your wedding breakfast.



• Receiving line: this really depends on who you are having in your receiving line (as in just you two or you two + parents from each side) and how many guests but receiving lines can go on for an awful long time. If you allow 5 - 7 seconds for each guest to speak to each person in the receiving line you won't be far out. This doesn't sound very long but in reality receiving lines do add-on around a minimum of 1/2 hour to the sitting down time on the day. Some people will pause to talk longer than you expect whilst others will simply pass through. Receiving lines can be very boring all round. Most receiving lines are done for the benefit of the couples parents rather than the couple themselves.



• Wedding breakfast: Of course this depends on the speed of the venue but an average 3 course + coffee wedding breakfast will take around 1.5 hrs, for 4 courses add 1/2 hour and 1/2 for each additional course.



• Speeches - how long is a piece of string? Of course some people talk for England and some hardly at all. Average speech time from our observations to include Father of the Bride, Groom and Best Man around 20 minutes to 1/2 hour with the giving of gifts often taking up the most time during the speeches.



• Turnaround time between wedding breakfast and evening reception (if using the same room). The venue will advise you specifically on this but most venues take around 1 - 1.5 hrs to do this. You need to allow extra time if a band is setting up in the room for the evening entertainment.



• First dance - it should be noted that first dances very rarely happen at the time they are expected. So if you are booking your photographer on a set number of hours and you want the times to include your first dance you need to allow yourselves plenty of leeway on this one. We are very often informed that the first dance will happen at around 8.30 whereas in reality it is normally around 9.00 - 9.30. Lots of things can affect the time of the first dance, all of them will be beyond your control on the day to a large degree. For example: the venue may take longer to turn the room around (this may not be their fault - sometimes guests lingering in the room after the wedding breakfast can hold things up), often the band may take longer to set up than you or they expect, guests may disappear to freshen up and not return at the alloted time.

We hope this has been a useful little guide to your wedding day timings. Wedding days can run to time but it does require meticulous planning and a little bit of luck! Some key people on the day (such as the photographers) can keep an eye on the times and gently keep you to time with being quick and efficient with the posing of formal groups for example and not taking an endless amount of time outside the church. They are also likely to be the ones who are most aware of the time when you are getting ready - very few brides have a watch on or are clock watching. Bridesmaids can often be so chilled out and fussing around the bride that they lose track of time and don't get their own dresses on in time!

The one thing that is for certain and which happens on virtually every wedding day is that after the day has passed the couple will say to us "We don't know where the time went. All that planning and the day was over in a flash." So our advice would be to try to savour every single minute as best you can and make sure that your photographer is the best you can afford and so they can fill in the gaps later with fantastic photos of moments in time you didn't know or don't recall happening. With the right photographers time really can stand still.

Sharon Malone

Watch Out - You May Get What You Pay For!

I sometimes dip in and out of the bridal forums – I like to keep totally in touch with the current trends and way of thinking of our brides. It helps to make me a better photographer I think because for me in order to do that I need to almost be inside my brides head if this makes sense.

Think the way she is thinking, see the things she is seeing, pre-empt what she is about to do so I’m in the right place at the right time and know when to ask for pictures and when to just keep quiet and go about the job of documenting the day as it unfolds.

So, knowing what the latest fad or craze is for table decorations for example ensures that when my couple have decorated their tables that way I don’t miss the all important details in the shots I take.

Equally when I am putting together my marketing materials it’s good to know what’s “in” and what’s “out” – so if I want to make my wedding packs look like and be made from pocket folds then my brides will identify with them because they may be considering these for their invitations. It’s good to keep in touch.

It’s also good to keep in touch and clued up on how the wedding photography market is perceived by most brides to be (apologies to any grooms to be who may be reading this post for referring to the brides but I see very few grooms on the forums and deal with very few grooms at the enquiry stage).

So I was a little sad, if not surprised, to see one post this week on one of the most popular forums made by a desperate bride to be who had that morning received through the post her wedding photography “deposit” back from her photographer along with an accompanying letter stating that due to the recession etc. she was ceasing the business.

The bride had gone on to say that for £450 she was getting an album and a printable CD along with all day photography. The problem here is that whilst the photographer concerned “probably” had another job during the week from which she subsidised her weekend photography long term this can not be sustained. In short there is not only no profit in that kind of pricing – worse than that – each time that photographer offered such a package, whether she realised it or not, she is making a loss.

Not long ago one of the few reasonably priced UK album manufacturers went bust. It had a massive knock on effect throughout the wedding photography industry. Not only could photographers who offered cheaper packages not get the promised albums the replacement ones they could get cost more. So where this lady photographer may have thought she could price the wedding at £450, knowing she could obtain a “cheap” album for her client once this company went bust then she had no cushion in place to be able to supply an alternative without losing even more money. There must come a point (obviously there did – hence the return of the deposit) where it’s no longer viable to carry on haemorrhaging money in the name of business. It’s a sad state of affairs.

There was no place for this lady to go with this other than to take the action she did – although it must have been terribly distressing for the bride. In including the printable CD she was not going to gain any reprint sales either – so had no hope at all of picking up any of her shortfall.

The scariest part of this whole sorry story though is that it is repeated all of the UK virtually every weekend. So consider this – if the album and the prints in the album are costing the photographer virtually all the money they are making from the booking then what is left for other necessities such as Professional Indemnity Insurance, Public Liability Insurance, back up cameras and lenses, additional lenses to ensure they are properly equipped for the job, a flash gun and back up flash gun, the necessary pc and software to process the images? Training – even the most accomplished of us still need to keep working on this one! A reliable car – which they know is going to start when they turn the key and get them to the wedding, suitable wedding attire? Tax – both personal and VAT required on products they buy in to enable them to fulfil the contract?

Ok – so we’ve established that these guys are flying pretty close to the wind in most cases. They are certainly much braver than I am! But it doesn’t end here either. What happens if they are sick and can’t photograph the wedding? Who is going to step in and take their place? Or indeed if they cease trading as this one did? At this level it’s unlikely that they will have insurance to cover it or a network of other photographers who will be willing to step in and bail them out.

So what steps can you take to protect yourself against the unthinkable happening? The advice I’m going to give now should apply whatever price you have agreed to pay for your wedding photography. Following years of experience in the business this is the absolute minimum protection you should be looking for from your photographer.

A – Ask about insurance. Your photographer should have adequate Professional Indemnity and Public Liability Insurance, in addition to this I would also want to know that they keep all their equipment fully insured too. Accidents do happen and what if that lens they dropped at last weeks wedding costs too much for them to replace before yours? I would want to know they had it covered!

B – Basics. Do they have enough kit and back up kit to undertake the commission you are paying them for, regardless of the weather? If it’s raining and they have to shoot your entire wedding indoors do they have the necessary lighting equipment to enable them to do this? Furthermore, do they have the knowledge and skills necessary to use the equipment? Do they have the skill necessary to produce pleasing pictures for you and not just “snap shots”? Once the wedding has been photographed do they have the basic equipment necessary to produce your finished pictures? If producing an album for you do they have the design skills and creativity necessary to make that album look it’s best?

C – Contingency plan. Do they have in place a “plan B” should the unthinkable happen and for some reason they are unable to fulfil their contract with you to photograph the wedding? What happens if they are sick or unable to attend the wedding due to personal reasons? Do they have a network of people, equally competent as themselves who are willing and able to step in at the last minute to ensure all is not lost?

At the end of the day there are wedding photographers around to suit all tastes and budgets. Just because a photographer is a relatively low price does not mean that there should be any compromise in the level of protection that is built in for you, their client. Whilst every photographer at owes it to their clients to ensure that they do undertake their business in a professional, reasonable and fair manner, every bride also owes it to herself to at least look at the photographer who she “thinks” she can’t afford. It could be that the very one she thought she couldn’t afford turned out to be not expensive but priceless.

©Yorkshire Wedding Photographer 2010

Patrick & Jia Take To The Streets In York!