Weddingbee Blog

Originally published on April 14, 2010

Mrs. Meerkat nominates Mrs. Pug’s post on what a wedding timeline looks like if you’re not including dancing in the day. It’s a great reference for brides who may not be getting married at night, or simply don’t want to include a dance floor at their wedding!

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As I’m waiting to start my recaps, I just wanted to share a few things…

Chances are at some point you will create a day-of timeline for the wedding, which may expand into a larger timeline for the overall weekend, and include important information like important cellphone numbers that will be distributed to key people.

So not mine but isn’t this pretty?

But I’m talking about something more hardcore than the above, with minute timing and tons of details, like that of Mrs. Daffodil.

Her marvelous packet!

While really honing the day of timeline information only becomes practicable as you get a few weeks out from the wedding, if you’re like me, you’ll be unreasonably and prematurely excited and anxious about the timeline and create one months in advance. And you have big blank spaces in it because you have no clue about the nitty gritty of the weekend.

Anyway, to create my timeline packet, I could not but help but use the attractive and uber-impressive masterpiece from Mrs. Daffodil as a template (although for my smaller wedding, the packet was only 4 pages, because Mr. Pug would have bailed out of the wedding at anything longer). For the actual timing of the events, I heavily relied on Mrs. Tomato because her reception, like mine, was non-dancing and ended at 10 PM.

Here’s the general outline of the deets I included in my packet.

Part I: Introduction

General hello, thank you, get your ass in gear

Part II: Weekend Overview

Summary timeline of wedding weekend, including: rehearsal, welcome event, portraits, ceremony, etc.

Part III: Key Contact Numbers

Chart of cellphone numbers for key people, including: site coordinator, all vendors, bridal party, etc.

Part IV: Detailed Timeline

Oh, and here’s where you overwhelm them with the mere smidgen of planning that goes into a wedding. Here’s the gist of what mine had.

Friday, March 19

9:00 - 12:00 Pack car and drive to Half Moon Bay; drop off OOT bags

12:00 - 12:30 Lunch

1:00 - 1:30 Final walk-through with site coordinator

Note: I built in a lot of time to the beginning part of this day and it was a good thing I did because we were running a few hours late, and only got back on track for the rehearsal

3:30 - 4:30 Rehearsal

5:00 - 6:15 Hang out at spa (I invited all female guests to come join me at the hotel’s spa to enjoy the whirlpools and chat)

6:15 Dress for welcome event

7:00 - 10:00 Welcome Event

Saturday, March 20

9:00 Breakfast

9:30 - 2:30 Ladies’ hair and makeup (I provided specific start times for each person); pick up pre-ordered sandwiches for lunch somewhere in there

12:00 - 2:30 Mr. Pug get ready; lunch

2:30 - 3:00 First Look

3:00 - 4:00 Family Portraits

4:00 - 4:45 Bride & Groom Portraits

4:45 Officiant and Groom sound check; family gathers for processional

5:00 - 5:30 Ceremony

5:30 - 5:50 Bride & Groom Post-Ceremony Portraits

5:30 - 6:30 Cocktail Hour

6:30 - 10:00 Reception

6:40 Welcome by emcee and Father of Bride toast

6:50 First course served; after everyone served, Brother of Groom toast

7:15 Second course served; after everyone served, Sister of Bride toast

7:45 Shoe Game

8:15 Third course served; after everyone served, Friend of Bride toast; open mic for guests’ toasts

8:45 Cake cutting; mingling afterwards

9:15 Cake served

10:00 Reception concludes

10:00 - 12:00 Drinks in Bride & Groom’s suite

Sunday, March 21

10:00 - 1:00 Farewell Brunch

Did you or are you going to use a timeline packet for your wedding? Did you get really giddy creating it, or really stressed out?

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Catch up on Weddingbee’s “Helpful Posts” Series!