How Much Wedding Coverage Do I Really NEED?: Wedding Wednesday

Hello everybody and today we are going to be breaking down all of the timeline details to figure out how much time you REALLY need for your wedding photographers and videographers.

Before we get started, keep in mind that many photographers have set packages that will give you a minimum number of hours but most will allow you to add on more if you request it…for a fee of course.

Starting off with the getting ready portion of the day. Typically, I would say that an average wedding needs about 45 minutes for details and 45 minutes for the actual portrait section for dresses and jewelry and whatnot. For those choosing jumpsuits, or traditional suits and tuxes, portraits tend to take around 20-30 minutes. Masculine details like shoes, watches, cufflinks, etc. can take around 20-30 minutes to photograph as well.

So for the “getting ready” portion of your day, you’re looking at around 2.5 hours. Now let’s add travel time. If you aren’t getting ready at your venue OR if you’re getting ready at separate locations, you need to factor in that travel time.

Photographers are on the clock for our contracted times and don’t “stop the clock” if we need to travel from location to location. Assume there will be traffic and add at least 5 minutes to your timeline.

Now let’s talk first looks. Should you choose to do a first look, it will typically take about 30-45 minutes depending on what’s happening. For just a simple first look, it’ll take around 5-10 followed by portraits. If you are choosing to exchange private vows, you’re looking at closer to 15-20 minutes total, again followed by portraits. Let’s stay with the minimum though and estimate 30 minutes.

Currently our time needed is
Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 3 hours

Next typically is wedding party portraits. It’s best to have everybody in the party meet at a specific location so you can meet them there and roll right into portraits. If everybody is punctual and on board, this takes about 30 minutes. For me personally, I’ll get the individual portraits of each person with their half of the wedding party, each pairing, and a few of the entire wedding party together.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 3.5 hours

Add in 15 minutes for the couple and the wedding party to rest/retouch before the ceremony begins.

Ceremonies tend to be the part of a wedding day that can vary the most. Some of the more simple ceremonies can be as short as 20 minutes and some, like those with a full catholic mass, can take upwards of an hour. This is something you’ll need to decide on for yourself. Most that I’ve photographed run about 30 minutes so that’s what we’ll estimate with here.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 4 hours and 15 minutes

Immediately following the ceremony is typically the easiest time to photograph family portraits. Be sure to prepare any parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. if they are going to be needed for portraits so nobody has to hunt for them! Assuming everybody is where they need to be, this takes around 30 minutes. A lot of photographers will ask you for a list of who you want photos of. If you want photos of 30 different groupings, you’ll need to factor in more time.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
Family Formals: 30 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 4 hours and 45 minutes

If you require travel between your ceremony and reception locations, this is where to factor in that time! Remember to add at least 5 minutes for traffic or construction!

Family formals take place during the start of cocktail hour leaving the couple with about 30 minutes to themselves. This time can be spent either alone and relaxing, taking in all of what just happened. It can also be a great time to mingle with your guests before the reception! In total, there will be around 30 minutes of “down time” before the reception!

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
Family Formals: 30 minutes
Cocktail Hour: 30 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 5 hours and 15 minutes

From here, all that is left is the reception! Most people have around 5-6 hours of reception but that doesn’t mean you need all of that covered by your photographers and videographers!! Generally speaking, introductions, first dance, parent/sibling dances, and speeches will take around 45-60 minutes when all combined. The more dances and speeches, the more time you’ll need. For our sake, let’s estimate 45 minutes.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
Family Formals: 30 minutes
Cocktail Hour: 30 minutes
Reception: 45 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 6 hours

Now let’s factor in dinner service. Depending on what your dinner situation is, this can also take 45-60 minutes. Because dinner can sometimes take a while, we can estimate 60 minutes here.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
Family Formals: 30 minutes
Cocktail Hour: 30 minutes
Reception: 1 hour & 45 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 7 hours

This leaves the cake cutting, bouquet/garter toss, any other special moments, and dancing, left to be counted. Cake cutting takes 5-10 minutes tops, as do the traditional tosses. If you have a DJ and a great crowd, 40 minutes is plenty to get a ton of fun dancing photos of you and your guests. Trust me when I say this, the people who are going to be on the dance floor at the end of the night, tend to be on the dance floor most of the night. Any dancing coverage past around 90 minutes is going to be very repetitive in terms of what faces you see in your final gallery.

Getting Ready: 2.5 hours
First Look: 30 minutes
Wedding Party Portraits: 30 minutes
Rest/Retouch: 15 minutes
Ceremony: 30 minutes
Family Formals: 30 minutes
Cocktail Hour: 30 minutes
Reception: 2 hours & 45 minutes
CURRENT TOTAL – 8 hours

I know you might be thinking, what if I want to do a really fun grand exit from my wedding? Do I need to purchase an extra THREE HOURS to make that happen? Absolutely not! A lot of times, we can stage a “fake exit” with just your immediate family and wedding party to get those fun moments captured without costing you oodles of cash to do so!

So…I know this was a LOT to read and take in. I honestly appreciate you reading this far and sincerely hope you found this helpful!!

THINGS TO REMEMBER
At the end of the day, things can be moved around a bit to create the perfect timeline for your wedding needs. I work with each of my couples to find out what is important for them and their wedding and tweak accordingly. This is just a rough guideline to help you figure out if you’ll likely need more time added or if you’ll have time to spare!!

A lot of elopements and smaller weddings don’t tend to need as much coverage. For those doing a very intimate ceremony and a small dinner party after, you likely will be fine with 5-6 hours instead of 8-9.

For any of my couples reading this, if you think you might need to add on some time, please don’t stress about it!! Time can be added at any point, including your wedding day!!

As always, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!!