Your ultimate guide to creating a wedding timeline for your business or client like a boss.
So what even is a wedding timeline, how do you create one and why would you even need one in your business? Here we are wrapping up over a decade of experience using run sheet and wedding timelines and giving you our best kept secrets from a Wedding Planners point of view.
A wedding run sheet, timeline or schedule is the most important document that you can have going into a wedding day. You could kind of think of it being similar to an event 'map'. It is the bread and butter, the mac-daddy road map to any good and well run event. It is the WHO, WHAT, WHY and HOW of a wedding.
Can you tell that it is one of the most important aspects of running a successful event? Let me give you some alterative ways of thinking about your timeline.
Have you ever tried to put Ikea furniture together without instructions? Have you ever tried to bake a cake without a recipe?
Have you ever driven a car blind folded with your Navman set to a foreign language?
Running an event without any form of direction and delegation would be like riding a bike with no pedals or brakes. I think you get the picture here?
Think of it as your bible, script, manual or event handbook, something that is on you at all times.
What should your wedding timeline contain?
Firstly, as much detail about the wedding or event as possible no matter if it for your own business or presenting to a client.
Allocated and key times (such as the ceremony time)
Vendor information including contact person and details.
Any specific venue or location rules permits or guidelines.
Health and safety information and locations of interest.
Any guest dietary requirements or allergies.
Wedding Timeline Tips
#1 Always overestimate time. When someone says 5 minutes, they really should be saying 15 minutes.
#2 Use the wedding timeline as a guide, but stick to it as much as possible. Things will always happen outside of your control on the actual day but having a timeline as a guide is your best friend to help get things back on track.
#3 Do not make it to fancy, keep the focus team. Sometimes in this situation, less is more.
#4 You can never add in too much detail (trust me).
#5 Always work backwards from your key times like the ceremony start time and hot meal service to venue curfew. This gives you the best information to help create an epic timeline.
How to create a wedding timeline?
You'll know I love a free app and that is why the easiest way to create a wedding day timeline is either trusty old Word doc, Excel Spreadsheet or through a Google Doc platform for super easy sharing.
Have a psychical copy handy at all times or to save trees, screenshot each page on your mobile phone to use on the wedding day.
Easy!