The Schedule

So I'm kind of planning-crazy (I mean I'm an events coordinator, can you blame me?) and today I started planning out a very general schedule of events for my wedding day. But it's surprising to me that there are some brides who don't even think about a schedule until the day or two before, and some don't think about it at all! A schedule is the difference between craziness and happiness on your wedding day, especially if you're not hiring a day-of planner to take care of your lack of planning.

And since you don't want to spend your honeymoon recounting all the errors made from lack of planning, here are some tips for your wedding day schedule!

• Your event schedule should cover your event from beginning to end (including setup and takedown) and should include every single little aspect of the wedding. Once you have one fully completed, you can extract different parts for different people (vendors, bridal party, planner, etc.) who may only need to know what they are dealing with.
• The more detailed the schedule the better. Include times, locations, names, notes, and more. Your wedding planner may do this for you, but if not, grab the computer program you're most comfortable with and start from the beginning. Imagine walking yourself through the entire day. If you're like my fiancee and this may be too hard for you, find a friend who would be able to help you and ask you questions to ensure everything gets on there.
• Ask your vendors for their information and work it into your schedule. If the florist says she'll be arriving at 7:30am and will need someone to meet her and show her the nearest water faucet, you better have all of that scheduled. When you have completed your schedule, send a copy back to the vendors and take edits as needed. This way you're both on the same page.
  
• Don't be afraid if your list is pages upon pages long. The more detailed, the less likely chance of something huge being forgotten. If you do still happen to miss a minor detail, well you're likely to be the only one to notice. And this should prevent that anyway.
• Start making your schedule at least 8 weeks in advance of the wedding. By about 3 weeks, you should have most things set, and by 1 week there should be no changes (except for very minor ones). Make copies for every vendor at your wedding (to be distributed as they arrive), for your bridal party, and anyone else who may be involved in the planning/setup/take down.

A few extra tips...

• When planning out time for photography, allot 1.5 hours for a very small bridal party, 2 hours for a bridal party of 5 attendants each, and 3 hours for a large bridal party. Add even more time if you also have a large family. Depending on if you choose to do this before (which I recommend) or after the ceremony you'll need to be time conscious with other plans--you don't want your guests waiting 3 hours for you to show up to the reception! And if you need to get hair/makeup done before pictures, and pictures have to start at 11:00am, you better make sure hair/makeup is starting at about 8:00am.
• With things like this, it's better to over budget your time in the schedule than under budget it. If you get your hair done and have 20 mins to just spend time with your friends before the photographer arrives, then it's an extra perk. If you run 20 minutes late and the photographer goes 30 minutes longer, you may be starting your wedding an hour late, and there's no one attending who will be happy about that!
• Some people are always late. If you know that a member or two of your bridal party will show up late to get ready, have their start time be 30 mins before the rest. It's not mean, it's just protective of the schedule.
• Make sure to include with your schedule, a detailed list of all your vendors and their contact information, even flight information if you'll be heading straight to the airport after the reception. Again the more information, the better. You can't leave the reception to grab your flight itinerary and it's not nice to make someone else do it for you either.
• If you're having a destination wedding, make sure to include a schedule for all events (including the days prior when you are at the site) and include everything from picking people up at the airport, to dropping off welcome bags, to playing golf.

Well I think that's plenty for you to start with. And just remember that if you do all this scheduling and planning, there's always a chance for something unexpected to happen, so do be flexible if that's the case. You do this planning and scheduling to save yourself stress, but no matter what happens on your wedding day, you are only allowed to smile and enjoy yourself! Leave the issues to your planner or your family to deal with.