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Wedding day planning for photographers

A wedding photography timeline is a handful of fixed points with arithmetic between them. The fixed points are the ceremony, the meal, the light, and anything with a hard stop: a venue curfew, a ferry, a sunset you want. Everything else is minutes you can count.

These guides apply that idea to different kinds of day: an eight-hour wedding, a UK order of the day, an elopement at sunrise or sunset, a first look or not. They sit next to the two lists that eat the most time, family formals and the shot list, and the person who shares the minutes with you, the second shooter. Read the guide that matches the day you are planning, then its neighbours. The blocks are interchangeable.

Start here

  1. How to build a wedding photography timeline. The method: hard stops first, then travel, then the family list.
  2. Family formals time math: groups per window. The arithmetic for the block that most often runs over.
  3. First look vs no first look: two sample timelines. The one decision that rearranges the whole afternoon.

Build the timeline

Pick the shape of the day, then fill it in with real minutes.

Family photos and shot lists

Two lists, both better when they are short and named.

Second shooters

Brief them once, in one page.

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