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Hi! I am Andrew Hellmich from Impact Images. And in today’s short video, I just want
to show you how to plan your wedding day. I’ll give you some ideas how to structure
time table so that your day runs perfectly. When couples come to see me, this is one of
the most asked questions. They are just not sure exactly how to lay out the day so it
does run smoothly. And there’s nothing worse than spending a year planning your wedding
and finding on the day that you haven’t left enough time for something and you have
found yourself rushing and it’s just horrible. The day is so special and it’s such an awesome
day that with a little bit of good planning, everything can run smoothly and you don’t
have any of those dramas, and you shouldn’t have because it’s your wedding day.
So, the easiest way I find to do this is to work backwards from the end of the day or
at least from when you are going to have your meals served. So let’s say for example,
you are going to have your meals at 6:30. So the meal served at 6:30. Meal served.
And my writing is pretty rough in some areas, you have to excuse that, but I’ll try to
make this as legible as possible and you should get the idea of how to do this for yourself
on your own day anyway. So at 6:30, meal served. That could be entrée
main depending on what you’ve worked out with your reception center. So if you have,
let’s base this on a say 100-person wedding, a typical Aussie wedding. If that’s the
case, you probably going to want to back 15 minutes for your emcee to get everyone seated
and to do whatever greeting, introductions for you and your bridal party. So, that’s
going to take it back to 6:15. So that’s Intros by the emcee.
So generally your guests are already at the reception before you arrive. They are waiting
to get in. They might have been having candy pies or drinks just outside, and that’s
a pretty typical scenario. So I try and have you guys back by about 6:00, and that gives
you a little bit of time to freshen up, just to relax, have a chat to you and your bridal
party and your husband or wife, just soak in the atmosphere and enjoy the day. Touch
up your [_____2:12] and make sure the hair’s perfect and yeah, you just don’t want to
be rushing all day. So you just need a little bit of time built
in. So bridal party arrives, and this is at the reception. Okay. I hope you can read that.
That’s ‘bridal party arrives’. Now before that, you are probably going to
be at your photo shoot with your photographer. Most photographers, me included, would like
to have about an hour for photos, not counting travel time.
If you have a super large bridal party, say six bridesmaids or more, and groomsmen on
the other side, you may need longer than one hour, and on the flipside, if you have no
bridal party, it’s just the two of you, then you’re going to need less time than
a full hour unless you have multiple locations. So there’s going to be a few factors to
take into account there and your photographer will be able to help you with that. So let’s
say you have about an hour for your photos. So it’s going to take us back to 5 o’clock
that the photos will start. So that’s the photo shoot.
Now generally, you are going to be driving somewhere for your photos. It could be from
the ceremony to the reception. It could be ceremony to photo shoot, or it could be ceremony
> photo shoot-1 > photo shoot-2 for different locations and then off to your reception.
So let’s base this on a typical or small Central Coast or New Castle wedding and say
everything’s pretty close and we are going to have a half-hour of travel time. So it
will take us back to 4:30. So that’s travel time.
Now you can divide that travel time up any way you like. So that could be 15 minutes
of photos at the church with the ceremony, with the gardens or wherever you had your
ceremony, and then you have a 15-minute drive to another location, and you have another
45 minutes of photos, and then another 15-minute drive.
So either way that total time will be one hour and 30 minutes or an hour-and-a-half
and that still is going to give us that same scenario. Again, you can tweak that to suit
your day, depending on how much travel time you need, how many stops, how large your bridal
party is. So before this, would be your group photos
and family photos after the ceremony and also that really special time with the hugs and
kisses and getting congratulated by your whole family and friends and guests after the ceremony.
So let’s again work in backwards, I try and do the big group shot first with everyone
and also some family shots immediately after that. So that takes me about 10 minutes. Then
again, I think most photographers would be the same. So that’s 4:20. That’s for group
photo, and we’re going to pull the family photos in there as well.
Like I said, group photo and family photos together at 4:20, and then before that, that’s
that hugs and kisses, and congratulating times - that’s 4:00 p.m. Let’s just call that
‘hugs and kisses’. Like I said, that’s a really nice time. I shouldn’t talk and
write at the same time because I am making mistakes here. ‘Hugs and kisses’, so I’ll
fix that so you can write that better – ‘Hugs and kisses’.
Okay, so that’s once you actually come down the aisle, meeting, greeting, saying hello
to everyone - really nice time. If again, it’s a typical Australian wedding, it could
be garden. It could be the beach. It could be in a Chapel or a Church. It’s generally
going to be about 30 minutes or half-an-hour, okay?
You might find if it’s a large Catholic ceremony with a full mass, then it’s going
to be below at one hour, again, so just backing that in. But most weddings are around half-an-hour,
which means the ceremony would start at 3:30. So 3:30 p.m. for ceremony start.
I should have had Natalie do this because her writing is a lot nicer than mine. Again,
hopefully you’ll get the idea. So ceremony starts at 3:30. This is going to take us to
4 o’clock. So again, we are taking a scenario of a small
Central Coast or New Castle wedding, everything’s local. And you happen to be getting ready
15 minutes away from where the ceremony is or the Chapel. That means you would be leaving
home at 3:15. This is the bride I am talking to, so 3:15.
So bride leaves home and that’s leaving home for the ceremony. Okay, and if you arrive
there a little bit earlier, most girls are running late but if you do happen to find
yourself arriving at the Chapel a little bit early, I’d say instead of pulling up at
the front door, do a lap around the block or swing up a little bit early and just enjoy
the cars [Ph 06:56] for an extra 5 minutes, and just soak in the atmosphere. It’s better
to do that than turn up 5 minutes early, and most of your guests and family scramble to
get into the church because you arrived early. So, better to come a little bit late; it’s
fashionable. It’s nice. Okay, so once I arrive at your house or the
photographer arrives at your house, we generally like to have about an hour to an hour-and-a-half.
That’s going to change a little bit depending on your photographer. So let’s say an hour-and-a-half
in this scenario, and then again, you can tweak that depending on your photographer.
So if that’s the case, that’s going to take us back to 1:45. 1:45 and that’s going
to be ‘Photographer arrives at the bride’s house’. I like to have it so that your hair
and make-up is done when I arrive and you are ready to get into your dress.
The bridesmaids can be in their dresses already to get into them as well. As long as everything
is ready to go, nothing less than turning up and having hairdressers and make-up artist
still working, and the second bridesmaid are full [Ph 7:52] and really holding things up.
What’s worse than that is that if the bride is not ready, you are not ready and you still
haven’t got your hair makeup done because then there’s really little we can do. We
can get some detail shots and things but you are the star of the show and we want to get
photos of you. So it’s really a good idea not to go last with your hair and makeup.
So 1:45 – ‘Arrive at your place’ with you and the girls and your parents and any
other family that are there. Again, a local scenario, we’ll say the guys are getting
ready 15 minutes away from where you are. That means I’ll be leaving then at 1:30,
so ‘Leaving the guys’, okay. And again, I, like most photographers, would
like to have about an hour with the guys. So I will be arriving there at 12:30. ‘Arrive
at guys’ place’. Okay, so with the guys, I’d like to have the guys showered and shaved,
ready to go when I turn up. They don’t have to be suited up. They can get into their suits
once I get there and then away we go. But that’s pretty much it. That’s as simple
as that. You can tweak those times to suit you. If you got a larger bridal party, smaller
bridal party, if you’re going to go have to have your hair makeup done, just back to
those times in, and just as long as you fit in with those times, you have to back in a
little bit of time driving to and from the hairdresser or makeup artist.
If you can get them to come to you, I mean I think that’s a lot better option but it’s
up to you. It’s your day. You do it your way, but just look at those times, work that
in with your plans and the day will be awesome. There’s nothing worse than rushing.
So if you are in doubt, leave a little bit extra 10 or 15 minutes here or there, and
talk to your function coordinator, with your reception center. Really the time that you
can’t change is that meal time. So that’s 6:30 time, that’s a really important one.
The chefs really, really, really hate it if they’ve got to serve cold food or try and
keep things warm. They want to serve food at their best and you are paying a lot of
money for those meals. So we really, really work hard to have you there on time if that’s
the time you’ve given us. So I hope that helps. If you get a chance,
stop by my blog which is www.impact-blog.com.au. Natalie and I have got tips and advice there
to make your day better than what it could have been - little things from service providers
and experience that we have picked up along the way as well.
So I hope to see you there. I’d love it if you leave a comment and/or any questions
for us as well. So, hope to see you soon. Thanks again for listening and we’ll see
you next time. Bye!