A photo timeline for the wedding day
When wedding pictures disappoint, it is rarely the photographer and almost always the timeline. Forty minutes nobody planned for cost more than any equipment can recover.
How long things take
- Getting ready: 60–90 minutes if both are to be covered.
- Couple portraits: 30–45 minutes is enough when the spot is close by.
- One group shot with every guest: 15 minutes, and they pass faster than you think.
- Family photos: two to three minutes per combination — twelve groups is half an hour.
- Travel between locations: the real driving time plus ten minutes for getting in and out.
The most common mistake
Pushing family and group photos to the evening. By then a third of the guests have left, a few are no longer entirely sober, and finding an uncle takes longer than the photograph. Straight after the congratulations, while everyone is still together, the same block takes half as long.
The light has a say
The last hour before sunset is the kindest of the day. In a narrow valley or a city built on a slope it is half an hour. Put the couple portraits there and you get pictures that do not otherwise exist — provided dinner does not start at exactly that moment.
Buffers are not a luxury
A wedding day runs late. Always. Leave fifteen minutes between blocks and the delay is absorbed during the day. Plan to the minute and you push it ahead of you until evening — and what gets cut at the end is always the same thing: the pictures.