How to Make a catholic wedding day schedule - Without a first look

From a photographer’s point of view

I’ll admit, making a solid schedule for a wedding day is beyond a headache. BUT, time and again, I see it make or break the flow of the day! As a photographer, I see all the behind the scenes of a wedding day and besides having a Day-Of Coordinator/Planner, a well thought through schedule is an incredibly effective way to have the smoothest day you can! (If you can budget it, I seriously recommend hiring a Day-of Coordinator or Planner!)

Having a Catholic wedding day only gives all the more reason to have a solid schedule. This is because you’ll probably be at multiple locations on the day of, and moving people is seriously difficult, and let’s not forget the infamous “Catholic Gap” between ceremony and reception! Over the years I have compiled a lot of tips and tricks to make for a smooth day but the one thing that makes me super nervous is when a bride and groom have a minimally thought through schedule. There are just sooo many details to think through that can throw off your whole plan if you’re not careful!

With all that being said, I provide all my clients with a tried and true full Catholic wedding day schedule that they can easily adjust to fit their needs, and making your own schedule isn’t impossible, it’s just going to take a bit of thinking.

How to get started

The easiest way you can get started on making your schedule is by starting with what you know. If you know your ceremony is at 2pm, that’s your starting point. Most churches will make you have your ceremony between 1-3pm, So there’s not much adjusting that. You can work backwards from there as well as figure out reception flow too.

I usually recommend the wedding party and the Bride and Groom getting to the Church an hour before the start time. You usually don’t need all this time, but if we factor in early guests arriving half an hour before, maybe the bridesmaids are running late, this only allows for about 15 minutes for pictures in and around the church if you don’t want to be seen by guests! This all changes if you want to do pictures before the ceremony. Which, I highly recommend, but is only most effective if you do a first look as well. These few minutes before are a great chance to do touch ups, pray with your bridesmaids/groomsmen, maybe do a “first touch” with your groom (you hold hands around a corner and just have a moment together ), do a first look with your dad, and honestly just take a moment to gather yourself!

Schedule Breakdown & Why

(This is assuming you have 10 hours of photography coverage. More hours allows for more breathing room!

• Travel Time (with a buffer)

  • Look up how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B, and maybe add 5 minutes to that. Put this travel time within your schedule. People inevitably run late, especially on busy wedding days! Do this for every time you change locations.

• Ladies Getting Ready Photos

  • 1-1.5 hours of Photo Coverage

  • This is when the photographer arrives

  • Detail shots, getting dressed, first looks.. Ladies should be fully done with hair and makeup by the time the photographer arrives

  • This seems like a lot. But when getting 6 girls hair and makeup done, dressed, and doing first looks, then get everyone out the door, somehow we usually still run a little late!

• Men’s Getting Ready Photos

  • 15-30 minutes of Photo Coverage

  • Detail shots, putting on boutonnieres. Most of the detail shots will be done at the ladies (invites, flowers, rings) but sometimes the Groom has detail items! This rarely happens in my experience, but it’s fun when it does!

  • This seems like no time, but honestly men also take about 5 seconds to get dressed, so they just usually aren’t needing a ton of time.

• Catholic Ceremony Mass

  • 1.5 hours

  • Allow for a little buffer. Usually the homily is longer, the distribution of holy communion is longer and sometimes it starts a little late! So, 1.5 hours it is!

• Formal Family Photos

  • 30 minutes

  • This is including the basic wedding party pics (standing in a row and smiling). These dont have to happen at the altar!! You can usually pretty easily find a better spot just outside the church, maybe a grotto or the front steps. Bright, indirect natural lighting is always going to be better than the dark orange interior lights im way to use to working with!

  • This will only work if you make a shot list for this ahead of time and get mothers to approve this and people know when and where to be for pics! I am all for doing your own thing on your wedding day but as a photographer I see the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom stepping in during pics and adding to our list in usually the most chaotic way. So let’s just appease them and ask them beforehand what they’d like to add to the shot list. (I provide all my couples an example shot list they can work with!)

• Wedding party photos

  • 1-1.5 Hours

  • With the Catholic Gap (the time between ceremony and reception) there is a great time for wedding party photos at a fun location! Again, look up these locations and make sure you have time to do it, but I allot 1 hour for photos at minimum! (25 min with wedding party, 35 min just Bride and Groom). If we are going to two locations I’d up it to 1.5 hours. This is not including travel time!

  • I always recommend allowing more time for just Bride and Groom photos over Wedding Party photos. This might be a hot take, but the day is about you two, and in 50 years you and your grandkids are going to treasure those more than a thousand photos of your wedding party. (Not saying you shouldn't get pics with your wedding party, just that I think you need less than you think!)

• Toasts:

  • 10-15 minutes

  • This is based on what guests are actually up for. And usually it’s not much. 15 minutes is plenty for this on a wedding day! If you are hoping for more time, I strongly consider having some if not all of your speeches done during the rehearsal dinner. 

  • Also really take into consideration who you’re asking to speak, are they big talkers? Keep it short and sweet? I often see Father of the Bride’s go over time, and their speeches are usually super touching, but just keep that in mind!

• First Dances

  • 20 minutes

  • If you are going to do the classic 3 first dances, then probably allot 20 minutes. ~5min for each song. This allows for a buffer too if things are running a little late. 

  • Definitely just add up how long your songs are and add a few minutes of buffer!

  • You can also just do a cut of each song, or have both the Mother & Son and Father & Daughter dances happen at the same time

• Open Dance

  • 10-30 minutes of Photo Coverage

  • Believe it or not, you really only need 10-30 minutes of coverage for this. People usually go downhill throughout a night, and hey, that’s up to you if you want photo coverage of that! But if you just want shots of everyone on the dance floor, be sure to do something to get everyone out there to start with (a group photo is a great trick) and yep you can get shots of basically everyone in that amount of time!

  • This greatly depends on how much you love dancing photos, some people love it and want lots of documentation!

• Time to Eat

  • At least 30 minutes

  • For the bride, groom, and photographer (who will eat while the B&G eat)

  • This is honestly however long you are able, try to make it as long as you can

  • Ideally it can be at least 30 minutes but I’ve had weddings where we all had 10 minutes to eat. Which I think was pretty hard on all of us, but it can be done! This is just the only time you’ve gotten all day to just sit and be with your new spouse and maybe the first time you’ve gotten to eat all day? Soooo I think it’s great to get as much time as you can here.

Customize it

All of this is just based on my experience, but your schedule should reflect your priorities and your dreams! Everything I mentioned above, except probably the ceremony length, is adjustable. I have some couples that want as much dance floor coverage as possible and don’t care at all about getting ready shots! And that’s totally fine with me! No matter what you do, you’ll never regret adding some buffer time, and you definitely won’t regret making a schedule and then sending it to everyone involved!

A well-structured schedule allows for way more peace on the day, it allows your photographer to capture candid, intimate moments, and it allows you to enjoy the day you’ve dreamed of. Ex. I really don’t think we should be spending time disagreeing about the family shot list when you could be enjoying cocktail hour with all your loved ones.

This was an insane amount of information that I don’t expect my clients to know! If you’d like to work with me, please reach out and I will happily give you my thorough Catholic Wedding Day Schedule as well as work with you to customize it to your day!

Maybe a pool party reception instead like Ellie & Andrew!