Traditional Vs First Look Timeline
Your wedding day can look very different based on what you choose to do. I think when deciding which option best fits you and your spouse to be you should kind of gauge how your fiancé will react and what you value. My husband and I chose to do the traditional timeline of no look before the ceremony. He’s not one to show his emotions so I didn’t get much of a reaction besides a smile. I suppose I wasn’t expecting much anyway and with my values the traditional way was more fitting for us. You just have to decide where you want the gaps to happen in your wedding day. I have laid out two typical timelines for an 8 hr wedding day from getting ready to the reception for each timeline so that you can see what each looks like.
Traditional
11am-2pm: Getting Ready Photos and detail shots will be taken at this time.
2pm-3pm: Guests arriving and before ceremony photos are getting taken of guests.
3pm-3:30pm: Ceremony starts and first look happens.
3:30pm-5pm: Wedding Party Photos and Family Photos.
5pm: Wedding Reception Starts
As You can see there is quite a big gap of 1 hr and 30 min to get all of your photos in. This can only work if there is a cocktail hour between your ceremony and your reception so that people don’t get bored. The only photos you get before the wedding are the getting ready photos etc…
First Look
9:30am-11:30am: Getting Ready Photos
11:30am-12pm: First Look
12pm-2pm: Wedding Party Photos
2pm-3pm: Guests arriving and before ceremony photos are getting taken of guests.
3pm-3:30pm: Ceremony
3:30pm-4pm: Family Photos
4pm: Wedding Reception Starts
With a First look there is more photo time before the wedding and less wait time between the ceremony and reception. This means you have to get up and get ready earlier in the day. There is less time for wedding set up if that needs to be done on the day of. This is also a 3pm Ceremony start time but if you pushed your ceremony time to later in the day then you wouldn’t have to start as early and you’d have more time to set up.
