I think wedding day timings are sometimes over looked. I’m going to run through the perfect timings for any wedding, and a few common timing mistakes I have seen over the many weddings I have been to:

Let’s start from the end and work backwards, start with your venue close time. Most UK weddings tend to have to finish around midnight due to licensing laws, (if your wedding is finishing at 1 these times will still work for you, but feel free to move the first dance later by 30-45 minutes)

First dance 7/ 7.30pm Have your first dance, followed by your first set of your band/DJ for 45minutes / 1hr, followed by your evening food in the gap between sets (to avoid people leaving the dance floor), have your second set at around 9.30 / 10

Speeches I personally think speeches work best after the food, speeches over run 80% of the time, and if the speeches are before food and they over run it can stress the caterers out having to keep your food warm.

Food I can’t give exact times for food as it all depends what you’re having but you want your food to finish around 1 hour before the dancing begins, that gives you a buffer for speeches and food over running

Drinks reception 1.5 hours worth of drink reception is perfect. If you’re having your ceremony at a different location, add the travel time to this 1.5 hours.

Ceremony Ceremonies last between 15 minutes to 1 hour (churches) If you’ve worked your way back from the list above you have probably come up with your ideal ceremony time.

Example times

TOP TIPS

1. If you want a father daughter dance, do that before the first dance. If you do it after I can almost guarantee it will kill your dance floor for at least 15 minutes. Once the first dance has finished people are ready to join you, if you throw in 3 more minutes of slow dance they usually wander off to the bar
2. The song after the first dance is SO important. You need a decent party tune!
3. Check how long your speeches are before the wedding and add 30% for a realistic time. Tell your speakers to keep it short, honestly no one likes long speeches. I once photographed a wedding with 3 hours of speeches – its safe to say that a lot of the guests were drifting haha.
4. The best time for a ceremony is between 1 and 3. Try not to do an early ceremony because you want to spread the day out, people will get hungry and tired. If you have a ceremony before 1 people are often hungry as they haven’t had lunch
5. The gap between the ceremony and the sit down ideally needs to be less than 1.45hrs, perfect timing is 1 hr 15 – 1hr 30. If its over 2 hours people will get impatient
6. Try and provide some snacks in that gap, whether that’s canapés, ice cream trucks or even crisp walls to keep the guests going
7. Check how warm/cold the wedding is going to be, as being too hot or too cold can effect the day. If it’s a tipi or manor house in spring/ autumn/ winter the chances are it might be cold. Make sure you let guests know so they can bring warm clothes. The same goes for glass buildings in summer, check the venue have enough fans/ heaters