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Free wedding day timeline generator

Wedding day of timeline generator

Enter the time your ceremony starts. Every block of the day — hair and make-up, ceremony, photographs, cocktail hour, your entrance, dinner, speeches, first dance, last dance — is calculated from it. Tick the first-look box and the portraits move in front of the ceremony.

Updated September 2026Written by the Wedvite founders

Ceremony start timeCeremony length

Ceremony and reception at the same venueUntick it to add travel time between the two.We are doing a first lookPortraits move before the ceremony and the cocktail hour shortens.

Clock

Your day, hour by hour

Ceremony at 3:00 pm, one venue, no first look. Send-off at 11:05 pm.

10:00 amHair and make-up begins−5h
Roughly 45 minutes a person, and the first appointment always runs long.
12:00 pmPhotographer arrives for the dress, rings and details−3h
1:00 pmYou both dress, separately−2h
1:30 pmGetting-ready and wedding-party photographs, one side at a time−1h 30m
Without a first look these have to be shot apart.
2:15 pmGuests begin to arrive−45m
3:00 pmCeremony beginsthe anchor — everything is measured from here
3:30 pmCeremony ends — congratulations and confetti+30m
Keep fifteen minutes here even with nothing planned. Nobody leaves a ceremony quickly.
3:45 pmCocktail hour begins+45m
Ninety minutes, because your portraits have to happen inside it.
3:45 pmFamily and wedding-party photographs+45m
Bring a named list and one loud person who can gather people.
4:30 pmYour portraits+1h 30m
5:15 pmGuests take their seats+2h 15m
5:25 pmYour entrance+2h 25m
5:35 pmWelcome and the first toast+2h 35m
5:45 pmDinner served+2h 45m
7:00 pmSpeeches+4h
After the main course, before dessert lands.
7:35 pmCake cutting+4h 35m
7:45 pmFirst dance+4h 45m
7:55 pmDancing opens+4h 55m
10:55 pmLast dance+7h 55m
11:05 pmSend-off+8h 5m

Notes on 6 of the moments

10:00 am Hair and make-up begins. Roughly 45 minutes a person, and the first appointment always runs long.
1:30 pm Getting-ready and wedding-party photographs, one side at a time. Without a first look these have to be shot apart.
3:30 pm Ceremony ends — congratulations and confetti. Keep fifteen minutes here even with nothing planned. Nobody leaves a ceremony quickly.
3:45 pm Cocktail hour begins. Ninety minutes, because your portraits have to happen inside it.
3:45 pm Family and wedding-party photographs. Bring a named list and one loud person who can gather people.
7:00 pm Speeches. After the main course, before dessert lands.

Every time above is a planning convention — the spacing photographers, caterers and venues usually work to — not a measured statistic. Send it to your photographer, your caterer and your venue and let them move the blocks that do not match how they work.

The ceremony time is the only fixed point

So this builds everything else around it. Type the time your ceremony starts and every moment on the rail moves with it — hair and make-up, the photographer arriving, the ceremony, the first look if you tick that box, the cocktail hour, the entrance, dinner, speeches, the first dance and the send-off.

Nothing here is a list printed on the page: each moment is an offset in minutes from the time you entered, pinned at its real minute on the rail, which is why you can try a one o’clock ceremony and a four o’clock ceremony and watch what each does to the end of the night. Every offset is a planning convention — the spacing photographers, caterers and venues usually work to — and not a measured statistic. Treat the result as a first draft to argue with.

Two fields change the shape of the day

The first look is the bigger one. Tick it and the portraits move in front of the ceremony, which pulls the hair and make-up call an hour earlier and brings the cocktail hour down to sixty minutes, because nobody has to disappear during it. Leave it unticked and the cocktail hour is ninety, because your portraits and the family photographs have to fit inside it. That is the trade people miss when they copy a timeline off a blog: a ninety-minute drinks reception is not a stylistic choice, it is where the photographs went. You can see it on the rail — the tinted cocktail block shrinks.

The other is travel. Untick the same-venue box and the generator opens a hatched gap in the rail after the confetti and pushes everything downstream by the minutes you choose. Measure that journey on a Saturday at the real hour, not on a weekday morning, and pad it.

Work backwards, not forwards

If the send-off lands after a time your venue will not allow — most have a curfew written into the contract — move the ceremony earlier rather than shaving fifteen minutes off four different blocks. Blocks cut that way do not stay cut.

Three of them reliably run long and are worth guarding: leaving the ceremony, because a hundred people saying congratulations takes a quarter of an hour; the family photographs, which overrun whenever nobody holds a named list and nobody is loud enough to gather people; and the move from drinks to a seated dinner, which takes longer than anyone budgets and happens twice when the room has to be turned around.

Suppliers get the whole rail, guests get three times

Send the finished schedule to the photographer, the caterer and the venue before any guest sees it. Each will want a block moved, and each is right — they know their own service times. What guests need is much shorter: the ceremony time, roughly when dinner is, and when the night ends. They do not need your hair and make-up call.

Put that guest version somewhere it can still change, because it will change. On a printed card the schedule is fixed in ink; on a digital invitation you edit one page and everyone who opens the link sees the new times, including the guests who opened it last month.

Next step: put the guest version of this schedule on the digital invitation they already have →

How to use the result

Set the ceremony time first

Everything else is an offset from it. Move the ceremony by an hour and the whole day moves with it, including the send-off at the bottom of the result.

Agree it with your suppliers

Copy the schedule and send it to the photographer, caterer and venue. Each will want a block moved to match how they actually work, and that is the point of sending it.

Give guests the short version

Ceremony time, roughly when dinner is, when the night ends. Put it somewhere you can still edit, because these times change more than once.

FAQ

The questions everyone asks.

What time should a wedding ceremony start?+

Work backwards from when you have to be out. Put a ceremony time into the generator, read the send-off time at the bottom of the result, and move the ceremony earlier or later until the end of the night fits your venue’s curfew. Mid-afternoon is the common default and the field starts at 3:00 pm for that reason, but the curfew and the dinner service decide it, not tradition.

How long should the cocktail hour be?+

Sixty minutes if you are doing a first look, ninety if you are not — which is exactly what the generator does when you tick the first-look box. Without a first look, your portraits and the family photographs have to happen inside the drinks reception, and an hour is not enough to shoot both and still see your own guests.

Does a first look change the rest of the day?+

Yes, at both ends. Ticking the box moves the hair and make-up call an hour earlier, because portraits before a ceremony need everyone finished and dressed sooner. The ceremony stays exactly where you put it, and so does the start of the cocktail hour — but that hour is sixty minutes instead of ninety, so the seated half of the evening runs about half an hour earlier: guests taking their seats, dinner, the speeches and the send-off.

What if the ceremony and reception are at different venues?+

Untick “ceremony and reception at the same venue” and choose how long the journey takes. The generator adds a travel block fifteen minutes after the ceremony ends — congratulations and confetti come first — and pushes the cocktail hour, dinner and everything after them later by the same number of minutes. Time the journey on the day of the week and at the hour it will really happen, then pad it: the schedule holds to the last car, not the first.

Are these times right for my photographer and caterer?+

They are the conventions those suppliers usually work to, not measured figures, and no two work identically. Use the copy button, send the schedule to your photographer, caterer and venue, and let them move the blocks that do not match their service times. This is worth more as the thing you send them than as the thing you print.

Does this generator save or send anything?+

No. It runs in your browser, there is no sign-up, and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere. The copy button puts the schedule on your clipboard, and that is the only copy that leaves the page.

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Wedding day of timeline generator

Updated September 2026Written by the Wedvite founders

The ceremony time is the only fixed point

Two fields change the shape of the day

Work backwards, not forwards

Suppliers get the whole rail, guests get three times