Creating Your Wedding Day Schedule

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I had a big wedding last night, and so the last few days have been spent in preparation for that...last minute details, rehearsal, and of course the wedding and reception itself. As soon as pictures are available I will provide them for you.

You would be surprised how much true preparation it takes to run an event like that. I handle corporate events all day long, but wedding events are so much more detailed, and you don't want a single thing to go wrong because it's "the most memorable night of that person's life" or at least up until they have kids. We still had a few errors in the night (some out of our control), but the good news is most people didn't see that (which is my job) and we were continuously told how great we did. Thanks Kristen (my assistant) for all the fabulous help!

If you don't have a wedding planner to help formulate your wedding day plan (ours was 5 pages in length) here are some tips for creating your own:

• Find someone who is very organized and can walk themselves mentally through the event to help you (this is key!).
• Start with a timeline, beginning to end (in 15 min increments is best to start with) and mark out when every big event should occur (from getting ready times, to photography, to wedding start and end, arrival of guests at the reception, eating, toasting, bouquet toss, garter toss, cake cutting, etc.).
• Then think about how long that event will take. Is it a 5 minute project or 3 hours long? Mark down the times it will begin and end at, and remember to give leeway for things starting early or late.
• Then from each main category, say photography, go ahead and break down that time into specific types of portraits (bride and groom pics, bridal party pics, family pics, extra pics, ceremony pics, reception pics). Your photographer should be able to help you with this, and tell you how much time they'll need for each. Mark those times down. For example, you know your pre-ceremony photography will last from 1-5. When you break it down, 1-1:30 is getting ready pics, 1:30-2:15 is bride and groom pics, 2:15-3:15 is bridal party pics, 3:15-4:30 is family pics, and then finally 4:30-5:00 are any last minute pics you want.
• You can also then take that a step further, and include the list of exact pictures you want, under those times. So say for bridal party, you write: bride with bridesmaids, groom with groomsmen, bride and groom with bridal party, bride with individual bridesmaids, groom with individual groomsmen, groom with bridesmaids, bride with groomsmen, and some fun photos of everyone. The same thing goes with your dj--write down the songs you'd like him to play at specific times, the introductions you'd like him to make (complete with what you want him to say), and tell him when he has free range with the music.
  
• While I am trying to show you how to make layers to your schedule and then sublayers and then further on from there, please do not go overboard and schedule down to when people can go to the bathroom. There is a point where scheduling can go too far. Keep it organized enough to help but not so organized that people must do everything on schedule to keep things running smoothly. It's a wedding and no doubt your schedule will have to adapt for things that are unplanned.
• Call all of your vendors and find out things from them, like when they're arriving, when they're departing, when they should be warned to start this or that (say cutting the sheet cakes for example) and more. Include not only their name but their contact information as well. We still had vendors we had to call and find out where they were and you don't want to spend forever trying to find their number.
• Include planning notes (either for your planner or for whoever will be in charge of the details). We had many notes similar to this: after ceremony, Amber will take the guest book, pens, and hat box with envelopes to the reception hall. Once there, Amber will light votives, prep the DJ, set out guest book and envelope, check in with vendors, etc. These notes are so that you (as a planner or the person who's running it...could be a friend) don't forget the million little details that make a wedding happen. I mean we had at least a hundred of those notes in our schedule.
• Once you have created your master schedule, it's important to make variations of that schedule. We created a schedule specific to the bridal party and a schedule specific to family. This way it only had about a page and a half of only the things they needed to know versus the full 5. The full schedule copies went to our photographer, videographer, dj, coordinators, and bride/groom.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of the tips, because this is second nature to me, but it's also best to have someone else run through your schedule as well. Kristen (my assistant) was always such a big help because she would think of things I wouldn't, and then we would find out the answers and get them on the schedule. Having someone else look for things you might have missed is so helpful and will only make your schedule better.

If you have questions on making your own wedding day schedule (fyi we made one for the day-before too, which included rehearsal) I'd be happy to answer them, as well as look through peoples' schedules and give comments if you'd like. Just email me at triedandtrueweddings@gmail.com.

Happy wedding planning!

~A