Event Timeline for Event Success

1. Event Timeline Introduction: Hello. My name is Hannah, and in this course we're gonna build out a timeline together. And then timelines are so critical for vets because they ensure things happen in time for your event, run smoothly and actually happen. So someone's told you that that timeline is not important. They probably done the event a 1,000,000 have before or they're not getting the full potential from creating an event timeline so larger, small, your vent or putting will likely benefit from creating event timeline. During the process, we're going to visualize your bed from start to finish. This will allow you to catch all the small details and follow up with the necessary people . Not only will you be predicting the future during this process, but you're creating the future by planning your event thoroughly. And then you combat that your vendors like Decatur, the venue photographer rentals are getting used. The timeline to ensure things happen as they're supposed Teoh. So I've been planning events for last five years professionally, and I'm here to help you plan your wedding. So for this course, all you need is a word processor and some information about your event. It doesn't have to be everything, but some information is great. You probably have put those items, so let's get started 2. Thorough Timeline: just a quick note. Before we get started in this course, I'm gonna show you my personal way of building a timeline. I'm saying this because it's gonna have some funny grammatical quirks, but it's work successfully from a time and time again, and I'll explain why exactly those works works so well. So the purpose of a timeline is for you and your vendors to be on the same page about what's gonna happen during every step of your event. So your timeline should be way longer than one page. I'm saying this because I've seen a lot of complex events, and when I say complex, I mean more than 40 people with maybe more than four vendors and multiple segments, like a reception in a dinner and dancing, and they have a time limit, only one page. So the telling one page is only gonna have the highest level of information like the start and in time, and maybe a few other details. It doesn't have all the small details that would tell your vendors what's supposed to happen and win. So if it doesn't have that information, why even bother creating the document for your vendors? The goal here is to speak thoughtful and thorough when planning your event and planning your timeline. So if you're going through this course with me, your timeline will naturally be much longer than a page to create a thoughtful and thorough event timeline. It's not gonna be a linear process. You're gonna have to think through the event multiple times, focusing on different segments, confirming details and then adjusting the timeline as you confirm things or make decisions that are best for your vendor. You'll need a keeper visiting it to keep it up today. So creative a template for you. But I encourage you to start from scratch with me in this course so that you have complete control of the timeline and the information on it. Let's get 3. Timeline Framework: okay. To build out our event timeline, your first gonna need to open up a word processor document. I'm using Microsoft Word, but you can use any kind of word processor I've definitely done on Google docks, especially if I'm more of a collaborator instead of the planner. So, as you can see, I've started just the very basics of a timeline. Um and I'm going to be doing a wedding timeline as it as an example, because they're usually a lot more complex than just a cocktail reception or something like that. I'm going to keep a lot of the information vague so that you can fill it out with your own information. If you are doing a cocktail reception, I'm gonna show you an example of another one, because the front page will look a lot a little different. But a lot of the take away information about how to build the timeline will be very similar , so it might be able to skip a little bit quicker than people building the wedding timeline . But hopefully it'll be really helpful to start. I just put last name last name wedding timelines, but you can call it whatever you want. You don't have to use your last name. Whatever. You're gonna be referring to your event as go ahead and put the top one. What kind of time liners is a cocktail Reception is a wedding. And then, most importantly, I put in as update in red. So what this is, is the day that you were working on the timeline? So today is April 25th s. So I put that on there. This is extremely critical for when you are sending out the timeline for people to review. This will tell them when you were last working on it. So if you end up sending the timeline more than once, this is supercritical. Let's keep going. This front page, I'm going to do a the most important critical, like quick information that you need. So the date the ceremony venue timing, reception, venue reception, timing, some contact information and then we'll get into the bulk of it. So I'm gonna do this pretty quick. Okay? So you probably have a lot of this information to go ahead and fill it out as you go. Um and then I'm gonna copy it for the reception. And this is only if you're reception is a different location from your ceremony. Otherwise, you could just say wedding venue, wedding timing, and then you can combine the timing. So already this is looking pretty good. Um, this is helpful for anyone who needs to reference information quickly. So the next part is the contact information. So who is important for the contacts? Are the bride the groom for who's gonna be coordinating it? Okay, great job. This is looking really good. So before I get into any of the dates, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to add a page number. This is gonna be important because we're gonna have a lot of pages. Sometimes I also add, um, in the header, I will add the name of the event again. I mean, it should be pretty who well known, but he never hurts. But I'll do that a little like a lighter grey, maybe like in here. So that is the first steps to building your timeline. The next couple steps are kind of putting in the high level information. It depends on your event about how far in advance you want to start. But let's just do a couple days before the wedding. So I chose September 22nd as the date. This is actually when my cousins are getting married. I'm not involved in the planning at all, but might as well use September. It's nice long distance away. And that's a Saturday. I'm gonna start with at least Thursday, Um, because probably you're gonna have stuff coming in going on that day. Call this day before if you want. And the wedding date is obviously the big day, so I don't use a lot of underlines in my timeline, but this one is so important that I will We've already added some of the timing up here so we can go ahead and pop that high level information onto the actual days that it's gonna happen. You know, I'm gonna go ahead and add Sunday here because there's probably gonna be some follow up items that need to be broken down the next day. So that is the most high level information I can think of right now. This is a great framework because you've already got sometimes in there and then you're just gonna be working around these times. So this is a word document So you're in. This is gonna go way down, but that's okay for I finish up with this section. I wanted to show you what I did for a cocktail reception. So moderately adventurous is my personal travel blocks. I just pulled the logo from my website and popped it in there. It's kind of nice if you're doing it for a specific company to have their little logo in there. I called it the cocktail reception, and instead of having that full front page of information, I won't have that much information about the event. And I'm not gonna be changing locations. So instead, I just did the event day. I just chose, You know, next month, some time, some timing. You're gonna have the location here. Your guest count is also pretty handy to have for a cocktail reception and then my contact information. And of course, the ever important day of and then you can just get right into the days. So again, I put the day before and the day of invitation time Invitation in time. Oops. And I forgot that little PM here. So that's my example of and and then, of course, I have my little page number there. So that's an example of what it would look like for kind of a smaller event or more fun event you can. Or if you have a wedding logo, you can pop that into your wedding timeline. 4. Assigning Actions: Okay, Now that we have the framework down, we can get into the details. So I want you to start with the team of vendors that you've already booked. And usually this is your core team. Like the venue catering, rent tolls, Avie, photographer, florist. Anything that you have already booked. Go ahead and pop that on to your timeline. Ah, lot of times your contract will tell you what time they will arrive. But if not, you need to reach out to them. When are you going to arrive? You should be in touch with all of your vendors during the process of making your timeline . That'll make the whole process go a lot smoother and just know that they want you to be in touch. They might not have the answer right away. They might have to figure some stuff out because they're not quite thinking of your wedding yet, But they will have at least an estimated time frame for you. So I'm gonna put in some examples and just know that this is not the perfect wedding. This is an example wedding. So your timeframes might be quite different. You might have someone loaded a dance for in the morning of other times we did one time a wedding where the dance floor was above the pool. We built how to dance floor on top of the pool. So that came in, like 2 to 3 days before the wedding. So I'll put that in there, Has an example. Other times, you know, it just depends on your wedding. So don't take my time frames as the way it should be done. You need to be in contact with your vendors and wanted to stop here to show you so you can see a few things that I'm doing. One of those quirks that I mentioned earlier is that I always assign whatever action is gonna happen to someone. And I put it at the beginning of the sentence, and I put it in bold that way. When you have this massive timeline, hopefully if, say, you're giving your time going to the deejay taken, just scroll down and see and skim to see where they're needed. It makes it really clear the only time I don't have a bold action item is the invitation start times and in times those air just kind of set in stone. No one's actually happening. Everything else should have an assignment to them. This could be kind of tricky, especially when it's like someone goes and gets lunch. Well, someone has to go and get it right. So you need to assign that action, and that usually requires you to go and talk to that person about what the action is. So let me keep going with the vendors. But I just wanted to mention that weird quirk. It makes the grammar of the sentence on a little off. I understand that, Um, but to me, the efficiency of being able to understand who is doing what is more important than exact grammar on the timeline. So I've done a number of things that I just randomly thought of to show you what it looks like when it starts to fill out. So you'll see that I put a place in between each individual time. But if some if a lot of things are happening right at the same time, I don't mind putting them right next to each other. And as you can see, it's just gonna get longer and longer and longer as you add all of your different vendors and all the things that are gonna happen if I was really planning the event. I go through all the vendors that I've already booked their contracts and kind of put in that information. So, like if I go and look at my venue contact, I see that they open up at 8 a.m. I might add that ends. Um, again, I just want to mention the bold who this is. So right now I put coordinator in for the placing linens. That's not always a case of who places linen. Sometimes it's a server, sometimes the delivery person who's doing linens. So these are all questions that you have to go out and ask who that person is so that you can update this. So if you don't know, you can always like, highlight it and then come back to it later about confirming who exactly is placing those linens who has the time to or the manpower? Or if that's gonna be an extra cost. So after I've gone through all of my vendor contracts that I've already booked, you can start thinking about other things that are going to happen like I put in the officiant. If you have any deliveries, if you're doing some kind of ceremony something or other like, how is each item going to get there? If you're doing special table cards, how are those gonna get there? You gotta add every single one of those things in. And who is going to be doing it that way? It's easy to remember on the day of the event. So I'm gonna go ahead and do quite a few more just to show you what it looks like. Um, in super speed. 5. Action Reaction Part 1: I went ahead and added some more. Just venue or excuse me, vendor items. So in this section, I wanted to talk about actions and reactions because when you when something happens in the day, something else is probably gonna happen afterwards. If an object comes into the venue, it probably has to come out later another once you've kind of gone it through and added all of your vendors. And you probably saw me doing that earlier when I had some load out times down here. It's good to go through and ensure that anything that comes into the venue is gonna go out . Except for there's a couple items like the cake. I guess if there is extra cake, what's gonna happen with it? Every single item has to have a reaction. So a couple things that I haven't done yet were I added this dance floor. Guys install dance floor because with the dance floor, they should be finished on that day Unless they put down like a cover of some sort. Then we're gonna have to have someone. Are they gonna have someone there to pull off the cover, or is the coordinator gonna have to pull off the cover of the dance floor. Probably. It's gonna be the coordinator in this pretend scenario. So they're gonna want to do that when the coordinator before the coordinator Keeley leaves for the ceremony is probably a good time. Maybe at 2 30 So still thinking about the dance floor, removing the cover? People have a dance. They need to take that out at some time. But it's definitely not gonna happen at the end of the night. It's probably gonna happen the next day and say we agreed that they come at 8 a.m. and then they're just gonna head out. Okay, we're done with the dance. Four guys. What else? I went ahead and added the cake to arrive 3 30 I put just cake shop, delivers cake on the cater, directs it where, um, the cake is placed. So that's something that if I If I had the coordinator, am not no longer on site at the reception venue. Maybe I had to go over to the ceremony video 45 minutes before the ceremony. Invitation time. Someone else is gonna have to help the cake person. Put it somewhere. So a lot of Times coordinator will have more than one person helping them, and they'll have one person at the reception place while they go and handle the ceremony. But if not, you're gonna have to confirm with someone where to direct it. So maybe I don't have that confirmed again. I'm just gonna highlight it, to confirm, to see if they can help direct where it's gonna go. So the cake comes in and then we still have to add where it's gonna be cuts. And then at the end tonight, let's say the mother of the bride is gonna take the cake with her earlier. I also added that the mother of the bride is gonna end up bringing some specialty table numbers, which she's gonna do it after she gets ready at three o'clock. So she's going to deliver those to the reception venue, and then the coordinator is gonna go ahead and place those before jumping over to the ceremony. Once she brought those, they have to go somewhere. And so because she's doing the cake, we're going to make her a little list at the end of the night and 10 even right at the end . It's probably she probably not could do that right then. So to be a little more realistic, let's put it at 10 like 20 and then we can keep adding things as there might be a number of things that she's ending up with it in her car. Whether the right is very important for the ceremony. It gets really complex in the middle of day because things are going on at the ceremony and at their perception of the same time. So it's important to add who arrives aware. Actually, there's like four locations because the brides getting ready in one room, the groom's getting ready in another room. The ceremony is getting set up and the reception is getting set up. So it's really important to be clear of where, um arrives to wear drops off at where arrives to where it's a little redundant, but, um, really important to to determine where things go. And if the bridal party room is really far away from the reception venue, this couldn't happen. We couldn't have that happened. At the same time, we'd have to put it, you know, 20 or 30 minutes later, it all depends on the ceremony location and video ceremony. That time is really complex. But I added in here that we have ceremony, musicians arrive a lot of ceremonies have a specialty musician or they have a V. Someone has to come in and play the music a lot of times that could be your venue contact. Maybe they haven't maybe a V person. Or maybe you're bringing in harps. Um, so eggs, for example. If the ceremony musicians come in, what's gonna happen to them? They're going to arrive, but they won't know where to go. So the venue, the ceremony venue contact has to show him where to warm up and set up the venue contact, you know, tests a V. Someone needs the test TV at the ceremony. If there's any kind of microphones so ceremony musicians in place, maybe that even happens before here. So so let's not quite get into the same money quite yet. Um, let's just think through the ceremony musicians that arrived there in place, they're going to start playing at a certain time, and we'll add that into the whole ceremony. Once the ceremony is done, I'm sinking. It's gonna take about 40 45 minutes, right when the photographers gathering on the bridal party and family coordinators directing guests to the reception venue, the ceremony is, is finishing up. So all this stuff is happening and things are breaking down. So that's when the ceremony musicians are going to clear out. You just they head out. I mean, you could say breakdown if they have a lot of breakdown and then head out separately, must do that and then about, you know, 10 minutes later at 4 50 when the cater at the reception places ready, the ceremony musicians are heading home depends on your relationship with your efficient. Sometimes they are invited to the reception. Other times not. Sometimes you want pictures with the efficient, in which case you have your pictures and then they can go ahead and head out. You want to do them first so that they can leave. So that's just one example of an action reaction. And then we ended up doing the officiant as well. In there 6. Action Reaction Part 2: Okay, so now that we've done dance floor, we're gonna wait on the coordinator. Let's keep going on these. I'm just gonna do a few more vendors, so you get the gist of it, Um, thinking through every element of their day. So a V is gonna load in on the day before then on the day of they're gonna come back, finish up and test. So I did add that they're gonna test, um, a B test sound. They might try to get the lighting done the day before so that they contested in the evening. So we'll put this in the morning again. These are things you need to ask them when they're going to do things. I'm I'm just giving examples so that at let's say the sun sets its kind of late at seven o'clock, a V test sent this test lighting for colors and, um, bawdiness and whatnot, but probably gonna test that then Then the next day we don't have them arriving any time. And so we need Teoh know when they're gonna be arriving. If they've got the lighting done and they just have to do sound, though probably still want to arrive around 10 but again went When are they gonna arrive? You got to check with them. And again, it just depends on how complex the sound systems are. So they're setting up the sound, they test it, they're all set to go for talking with the deejay. Everything's good. And then they're just gonna break down so they don't have really much going on during the event besides being available for support, if anything happens, so that's kind of an example. You can do this with the floors. The deejay caters the rentals. What happens in the beginning of the day? Think through their whole day and at their reactions throughout with the rentals. Um, sometimes it's good to know what's going down first and then second and then third. Um, I mean, you don't have to get super detail, but some things are important for other things to happen, like you have to place the tables in an order for the A V to know where to put speakers or stuff like that is it's just really critical work with your rental company. Or maybe it's most important that they get the some of the rentals to the caterer who's going to arrive at 10? I don't know. It depends. It depends on everyone. So you're just gonna have to be in constant contact with everyone, find where they're coming in and where they're leaving. Like say, you have hand calligraphy place cards I put in here, so those are gonna have to be done, and they're probably gonna be delivered to the bride and groom in advance some, like week before or so. We can even add that if you want Teoh. But at some point, they're gonna have to make it to the reception venue. So and they're gonna be have to be placed specifically where the bride and groom wanna be placed. Usually that's the job of the coordinator because they'll know the guest list the most closely. So at some point, I So I added it on Thursday that they might as well get it done nice and early to pick up the place cars from the bride and groom. Then I have it before the coordinator leaves the reception venue that she places the place cards. It usually takes a while to place place cards in the exact correct spot. So about 1/2 hour to place place cards and remove the dance for cover. Um, it's probably good. She might need more like 45 minutes, depending on your guest count. And then after the end of the night, you need to decide what those place card to Dio. So are they just gonna be thrown away? In which case you can have caterer, remove clear tables and place cards. That's an option if you just want them toss otherwise coordinator to collect place cards. And then maybe that goes into the mother of the bright pile and car at the end of the night . So it's up to you what you end up deciding. Let's go ahead and do that 2nd 1 and we'll put these together. There we go. So as you can see, I'm already on page three and I really have, um, just sporadically added different vent vendors. And so you can see how this is just gonna be impassive and that's okay because we have it easy to read. But I'm also noticing that I'm losing thes key times so I might end up going through and bold Ingham and making them read or making them bigger. Um, are making them like a nicer kind. It's all left to you are making a wedding color Just so it stands out if you feel like those air being lost in the chaos. So now we can really see those things are starting to build out on each time you can get really specific in the next section, we're going to go through an ad thesis era mony and run of show. Some other details those air gonna get really specific on time. So, um, if you haven't already, you're probably gonna get into, like the in between five minute marks because some things need to be exact. 7. Adding Schedules: Okay, I know that. I said I was going to get into the ceremony and programming details of the day, but before I do so, I want to show that you that I added a hair and makeup schedule for the morning. So this takes a little finagle ing, um, and talking to your makeup artists and hairstylists. So in this example, I have makeup taking 30 minutes, whereas the hair takes 45 minutes. And I actually made the schedule twice because I had a mobile, which is mother of the bride, a little bit later, but then it overlapped here. So it does take something niggling, but you want tohave the bride towards the end of the day. I know it feels really early to get your makeup done at 9 30 or your hair done at 9 30 But someone has to go and order to ensure that everyone gets done in time and that the bride has the most amount of time here. So even if she's up further, you definitely want to give her a lot of extra time to be finished up. Since we added hair and makeup, we need a hair and makeup stylist to arrive and then leave later. So I added them in arriving at nine so they could have some time to set up before 9 30 thing to think about and to ask them to see if they'd be willing to stay throughout at least the photos, which is I have the photos taking place at to probably 2 to 3 p.m. And, um, if the bride is done at, say, two o'clock, are they willing to stay for an extra hour? They might may be willing to. They may not want to at all, and that's not part of their contract. So respect that. But definitely make sure that you know when they can arrive and when they're gonna leave. So another thing. I went ahead and added, and this is another thinking through and talking with the photographer this time. So it's good to talk to the photographer about the bride bridal pictures earlier and how long the hair and makeup people should stay, but also definitely right after the ceremony. So we haven't quite added the ceremony yet. We're going Teoh, but I was started thinking about who will who would be in a photography schedule and really talk to her from talking about how to add this to the timeline. Maybe you just want to add names. I don't know how long these take. These were pure guesstimates. This timing that I did came comes out to about 55 minutes, which is great. I don't know. Maybe the entire brighter party or really rowdy, and they're going to take a whole 15 minutes on their own, giving the bride and groom alone time to be much shorter. So again, talk to your photographer to see what they say, how long things take. And in that process, it'll help you determine who can be in these photos because you don't want to take longer than an hour or you can depends how far the ceremony location is from the reception. It'll kind of determine who could be in those photos or who you're gonna get later on. It doesn't mean that you're not gonna get photos with them, but this is side time set aside specifically for them. One thing to know is I put the officiant first because you want them to be able to head out if they're not going to the reception and especially you wanna have them head out? Um, right away. Also, flower girls bring bearers. Any young kids you want to do, kind of at the top of the schedule. Um, just because they're gonna get rowdy and it's gonna be harder for their parents to control them where they might be getting hungry or etcetera, etcetera. You're gonna want to put people who are going to be more patient towards the end, definitely the family. And then you're brighter party again. The whole day might be a little boring for them. With the hair makeup schedule, you saw that. There's just a lot of waiting around and saying With the photography schedule here, there's just a lot of waiting around. They're gonna have to find a way to entertain themselves, and then they can leave and head to the reception. No problem. And leaving the bride and groom with a photographer. They'll have a moment alone and some really great photos. Now let's get into the ceremony 8. Ceremony: Okay, I've moved down to the ceremony area, just thinking through right before the ceremony starts for a second. I've already added When the brides and bridesmaids arrive, I have them arriving at free 15 for a four o'clock ceremony for two different reasons. First of all you want. And this is assuming that the bride and groom don't want to see each other. So you wanna have the bride arrive first and Tucker away into a little room? Um, hopefully the ceremony will have somewhere where she can have a little private moment for the wedding begins. Or I guess if it's outdoors, you could keep her in a car. It's also good because guest will start arriving, probably between 3 33 45 So you don't want any gusts to see her as well. At 3 30 I have. Once she settled, I have the groom, Zeman's and groom. Families can come whenever, but the groomsmen and groom can come at 3 30 once she settled and just keep them in the shade. Tell them not to go too far. I don't always have a room for the groomsmen, but they're they're pretty good on their own. So guess I said, Well, come between this time so I wouldn't hadn't created a little Times law. And a lot of times It's nice if you have some kind of greeter, um, a family member who is willing to get there early and hand out programs or let them know where they can sit. If you have ushers, definitely have them arrive at least 20 minutes early to help pass out programs and stuff or just agreed. Erred. Ah, lot of weddings nowadays don't have side, so you they're just letting people know what? That they consent wherever. So I'm just gonna say, greeter, But this should happen. Actual name. That's kind of our letting the timely No, this is when guests are arriving. So little note about ceremony start times is that it's kind of understood that ceremonies will start about 10 minutes after the scheduled time. The reasoning behind that is a lot of times guests are notoriously late. They have time to find seats before the bride walks down the aisle. I've also worked at a company where they were dead set on making the ceremony happened exactly on time. I kinda depends how you feel about it right now. I'm gonna do it. So it's about five minutes after kind of a compromise. So at four o'clock, I'm gonna have the court. The coordinator is gonna line everyone up, So this is of course, happening in two different locations. The families will usually be with bride and bridal party because they're gonna be walking down the aisle. There's a number of ways to have a ceremony go, so it depends on what you like. So once everyone's lined up at their designated spots, someone is gonna need to cue the ceremony Musicians that we have right there in place, ready to go whenever you are, you just have to determine with them who's gonna be the Q person and what that Q is going to be. For this example, let's have the ceremony venue. Contact will call her or him CVC just for short. So I don't keep typing this out, be the Q person after this moment and tell the ceremony is done, I'm not gonna have any times just because it's going to take as long as it's going to take . So we're gonna have our initial start time. But then, after that you'll see that I'm not gonna have as many more. So what I did there is, I added the ceremony musicians. So sometimes you will have a different music selection for just the families and bridal party, and then you'll have a different song for the actual bride. So that's the way I'm doing it here. You can always have it the same music. So I have the groom. Mother walks down with groom's father. This is a scenario in which both families have both parents alive and no one's fighting, which is usually not the case. You can change anything you want. It doesn't have to be exactly this. You know what it's usually the bride's grand for. Someone else usually walks the bride's mother down if the bride's father is alive so that the bride's father can walk the bride down the aisle. In these, you're old traditional things. It's up to you and your family. These are just the example. Usually, the groom side does go first so that the bride's comes neck and then you wait until the bride's mother is seated before the next action. So I will do as if the groomsmen are going to be coming down from the side of the altar. So here I have the men coming in forward. So the groom comes first because he'll be leading the pack from the side. Then I have the bride's maids coming in in reverse. Um, you'll see. And I realized I didn't add a maid of honor in the the hair and makeup schedule up here, so I'm just gonna keep it consistent and not have the maid of honor. If I did have a maid of honor, you can have her go after the flower girls or before the flower girls add one more person. Or maybe you don't have any bridesmaids. This is backwards because this bridesmaids gonna come down the yacht. Well, dude over comes down the aisle and then lines up this way so that at number four and number four on this side are the same. And then for the flower girls, you can have them go sit with the parents. Just have the parents a very specific spot. So let's get to the show Pride processional. So we're gonna copy this in a way because the music is gonna change after a pause and this is gonna be brides Processional music. So it's really important to know your songs well in advance. Okay, so what happened here is that Coordinator Cues bride and father of the bride. They began walking a super slowly like, almost comedically, slowly. Then they reached the very bottom of the aisle, furthest away from the altar and pause for a moment. Most people will have stood by this time. If not, that pause allows for all the guests to stand. They continue ultra slowly down the aisle and stop a few feet away from the officiant. Ah, lot of times officiant will do some kind of hand off some kind of exchange between the father of the bride and the groom. Not always. So this is up to you and your officiant father of the bride goes and sits on the left side next to the mother of the bride. This is a very somewhat traditional ceremony, so I'm gonna go ahead and add some options here from a previous wedding that I did. Okay, so I just added in the recession recessional Excuse me. And so in these highlighted areas, you're gonna add the actual name of the song That will really help. So in the ceremony, of course, again, you're not gonna do all these depending on what religion you are and what not. You don't really have to get super super envy. Did he tell what the fishing is doing? If you don't want to, I would just add if you were doing anything special at what wanting they exchanged a certain gift at another wedding. They've done personal vows. It just kind of depends on your officiant and you as the couple. What do you want? After the presentation, there's almost always a presentation of the Mr and Mrs Whoever Whoever grooms last name, the recessional begins. Um, that's whoever's cueing. The music really has to pay attention. What's going on to Q? That recessional music, usually something a little hot beer pump, your papier bride and groom. Look at the audience. Oh my God, we're married. Then they can walk slowly. Don't run away down the aisle to a designated photography area. The bridesmaids and groomsmen wait until the bride and groom are at the end of the aisle. Then they pair up and follow the bride and groom so the bridesmaids will go backwards from what they came in. And the groomsmen will come in as so one and one come together. The people who are closest to the bride and groom will come together first. I hope that makes sense that followed by the officiant bride and groom. Parents of the groom don't worry about the flower girls and ring bearers. They leave them with their parents. Don't make them go separate again. That's a little too confusing. If someone's not there to specifically guide that Meanwhile out while the whole ceremonies happening, the reception is still being prepped. And so I have a few notes in here, but basically you jumped right into photos. I do want to mention for the photos right after the ceremony. Hopefully you will work out with your photographer a very kind of secret location designated location that I I put up here because you don't want all the guests of the wedding watching you take pictures because what will inevitably happen. People want to come up and congratulate you for getting married. Ah, sweet is, that is you really don't have the time to talk to these people. That's what the entire reception is for you really got to get straight into photos, so it's really helpful if there's a pre designated location for that. Was those photos to take place that are a little separate from the guests so that the coordinator can kind of step in between once all these people go by and any kind of specific family or grandparent's that need to be in the photos Once those people are kind of over by photos, you stop the guests and tell him, OK, we're off to the reception venue and you point them in a different direction. So that is the gist of a ceremony. You can see it just added so many more so much more to the timeline, and you can space this out how you think is most appropriate. So already have five pages, and we haven't even done the reception. So let's get into that next 9. Reception: So I have scrolled down toothy dinner reception. Yes, it should be reception start time. That's kind of funny. So let's assume that the bridal party and bright ng room are going to do a grand entrance, that the coordinator is going to cue the deejay. So whatever grand entrance song we should all be, every song on here should be predetermined. So this is it similar to the the recessional except backwards because you want to start with brides made. One thing to note here is that if you're writing out the names, usually it's the first and the last name for the introduction. If anyone is reading anyone's name ever, it should be explained to the announcer or the M CEO or whoever is talking, you know, you can decide what your grand entrance looks like. Does it look like the bridesmaids and groomsmen enter creating like hands over their head, where the bride and groom go through it? Do they go to the dance floor and do a dance move? It all depends on what you want. So we're gonna do that 2nd 1 because that's what happened at this wedding that I'm referencing. Okay, you can determine whether or not you want to have a say. If you're having a food service, if you want this hollow to be served, all guests and then the grand entrance song happens. Or you can wait until after the grand entrance happens and then have the salads served. This is, of course, and I'm going to go through this time line as if there is a dinner service. It would be different if it's a buffet or a family style so you can talk with your cater about how long every single thing is gonna take. So I'm going to say that they do the grand entrance. They're gonna go and sit down. I've also seen it where the bride and groom they go to the dance floor, do dance, move and then it goes straight into father, daughter, mother Sundance, right at that moment, kind of as a last moment for father and daughter to dance together and mother and son, that doesn't have to happen right now. It can happen a little later on, so let's say that next. Let's say that they don't do that, though. They just go, then find their seats. How long do each course last. We'll definitely talk to your cater. I did find this online, and I happen to really agree with it. It's, ah, kind of a timeframe of how long things take, assuming that you have a solid course, a main entree and then dessert. So I really agree with this in terms of like, it usually takes about five minutes to serve a meal, no matter what your guest count is. Because caters will adjust the amount of servers to flex with the guest count, right? So it's always going to take about five minutes for the solid to be served, and then guests will take depending on what kind of salad it is. It might take closer to 10 minutes or 2 15 minutes. I usually don't have anything going on during the salad course. Just let everyone sit and talk to each other at the table. It'll take another five minutes to clear the salad. The entrees are sometimes a little trickier because you have vegetarian options. You have the chicken, the fish, whatever, whatever you have, it takes a little bit longer. That's why it's seven minutes. Instead of just serving everyone the same exact meal right there. I really like this. I think this is a good breakdown. I found this from a source online that I will definitely linked Teoh in the description and all include this in the resource is One thing I don't agree with on here is that I love champagne, but I never do a champagne toast. I think that's a waste of champagne, cause not everyone drinks it, and I would want it all instead. Class in hand is totally fine. Whatever is on the table, whatever they already have is a great option instead of doing a specifically champagne toast, so you might not have to have time in order to serve that. You don't have to make the time because it's already glass in hand and then all the toast first dance. Those items high prefer actually to do them when the guests are dining, because then you have all this time later for dancing. And I love just letting people have fun and enjoy the party itself. As you can see if all the toast and first answer happening while the gas or dining the bride and groom. Also, that's their only time to go around the tables if they really want to, so they don't really get to eat. Um, but I'm gonna make this timeline as if guests are making toasts during that dining time. Okay, so they serve the salad course as we saw on here. It takes five minutes to Dio, so let's 5 15 We'll just say guests enjoying hopefully in towel. We'll give it 10 minutes. Say it's like a light summer salad or No, this is in September. Maybe it's a little hard here, but we're just gonna give it two minutes. So 6 25 As you can see, I, um, don't have an action assigned to this. I don't love that you to me. Then that means that it might not be necessary, but it might also be helpful just to kind of know what's going on during that time. Okay, so we're at 6 30 so I guess Dearing the salad course. That's probably when I would go round and prep the speakers when I talked to the speaker's . What I'm usually telling them is, it's gonna be great that last minute encouragement. I usually say who's going before you and who's gonna go after you for the first person. They have the toughest job because they have to get everyone's attention. So I tell them how to start. And then also how toe hold the microphone. This is really critical, and people do it wrong all the time, especially as they drink more. What happens is their hand kind of slowly lowers to their belly button, and it's so hard for the mike to pick up that information. What they need to do is basically almost have the microphone in their mouth. It has to be so poor close. Um, if you watch pop stars and stuff, it's literally like on their face when they're speaking into the microphone. So I always try to tell them you have the microphone right in your face when you're talking . Also, you know, keep it short, keep it light, just kind of plough on. If you get lost, don't worry. Just look at the writing room, smile and be like congratulations and wrap it up. That's kind of what I'm doing during the solid course, checking in with e caterer, making sure everything's going okay and prepping the speakers I would want before I start any speeches to make sure every course is firmly on the table, because the downside of having toasts and speeches and anything going on while people are eating is that there's some kind of ambient noise of fork and knife kind of going into the food and things like that. So we'll say, I think seven minutes is really accurate, So I'm just gonna do one minute after I'm gonna have the first speaker go up. And usually I'd bring a wireless mic to speaker. But I probably confirm with the deejay where the best place is to another thing, I might tell. Speakers number 23 and four, Um, is what to do if the person in front of them forgets to introduce them, which constantly happens because everyone's very nervous. So what I'll do is once the entree courses completely served, the last person has their dish on the table. I'll bring Speaker One the microphone, and I tell them to go ahead, walk to the center of the dance for once they're there. What I'll do is I'll stay at the table where they were, because that's usually their family or close friends, and I'll encourage them to whatever table they were at to go ahead and start clinking their glasses. There, you know, butter, knife or whatnot. I only gave about 3 to 4 minutes per speaker. I know that's not what your speakers are gonna do. Try to get them under five minutes. After about 25 minutes, people will definitely start glass ing over and not be paying attention so you can have more speakers if they're all on the shorter side. But I would have them aim to be about three minutes or shorter, and that that means they'll probably take up five minutes. So but we're gonna put in three minutes for now, is usually. What I'll do is I'll stand by the stage and have a glass of champagne ready to give to speaker number four, because at the end it's kind of hard to wrap up the speaking portion. So if I have a glass, I'll give it to them, and so they can cheers the audience. And then I can also take the microphone from them. Once I have the microphone, the deejay will immediately like pretty shortly after. Ask the bride and groom to the dance floor for the first dance. Then the deejay goes, Had em plays the first dance. And then that's a nice time to go ahead and go straight into the, um, father daughter mother. Sundance's could be separate or at the same time once those things were done. Let's see, We serve dinner at 6 30 from that little chart 20 to 25 minutes where we at now. So that should be around 6 50 Yet that's about right. That's about 25 minutes later. We'll go ahead and put if people have the stuff in front of them for a little bit longer. That's all right. If the speeches go longer, people can finish up. So if people are wondering what to do at this point, you can go into a full on dance party. Um, have the deejay right after this place, something really bumping to get people or you can go straight into. I mean, I already have everyone's attention into, ah, kick cutting. If that's what you would like to dio. Other times, um, the photographer can just go over with the bride and groom over to the cake cutting area and just cut the cake like 7 10 to 9 45 Dance party is a great amount of time. You wanna have at least an hour with this much time? That's fantastic. Again, it won't. People won't get out on the dance floor intelligently. 7 30 I'm guessing just because it always takes a warmup. People need to get that alcohol into their, um, their bloodstream. Other things that can happen to help people get out on the dance floors. You could do a book, a torassa garter toss. So, yeah, that's a great amount of time to just really enjoy the rest of the the party water. Normally happen is the photographer. Once she gets some, he or she gets some dancing pictures. They'll probably gonna head out after whatever. The last item is usually the cake cutting, and that's okay, cause after that, it kind of just gets a little messy. So that is the reception that's looking pretty good 10. Final Visualizations: Okay, so this timeline is already six pages, which is crazy because I feel like we only just started it. Well, what I suggest that you do now is to think through the event from a number of different perspectives from start to finish. So we kind of did that with the different vendors. But also think it through from your guess perspective. When they arrive to your ceremony location, let's bump down to ceremony. Will they know where to park? Maybe it's better if we have a sign of where to go if it's a large area. So what I did is I put in. Maybe the greeter puts a sign up when they get there of where people should go for the ceremony. Eso they find out where their seeding The ceremony is just fine. They had to the reception. How do they find out what? They're what table they're at? Is there a little envelope name? Excuse me? Envelope with their name on it that has their table number inside. How did they find out where their table is? So you can add those items in? Just think through the day in terms of the guest. Then think through the day in terms of the bride and groom, which you are making sure you have everything you need. Another thing that I often like to do is have one of the bridesmaids or someone close the bride. Be kind of the bride's assistant throughout the day. So when the bride is taking photos earlier in the day, there's at least one bridesmaid there to refresh lipstick, reflect the dress kind of help her do whatever she needs to dio in terms of photos or you know, anything else. Put on more deodorant or hairspray or whatnot. I kind of like that. So I pop that in there, because when you're thinking through the Bryce perspective, you might be wondering, Where do I put my phone? Where do I put this? It's have the bride's maid carry everything her stuff and your stuff, obviously not during the ceremony, but during all the other times I have her staying behind. Even after the entire broad bridal party shoot. Maybe the bride wants to be alone with a groom. Or maybe you have that one bride made stick behind refresh re fluff. Keep the pictures looking really incredible. I don't think I've said it. Go on, Watch my video that I did with Natalie Thompson's. It's about getting the best possible photos from your wedding or event. So we talked about the second shooter and how wow one photographers doing this. The second shooter is running over the reception venue to take location and detail shots and kind of capture that cocktail hour, which the bride and groom will not will not be able to see. I would say go through the timeline at least like four or five more times, and to kind of catch all the details that we haven't caught, talk to your vendors and ensure that they know what's going on and what's expected of them and then helping them create the time that they need in order to do everything that they're going to do properly. It's a back and forth, and you kind of have to adjust is you go. Another thing is, the guest count will also affect items, So if your guest count is coming in a lot fewer than you expected, you could probably take away a table. But then you need to contact the rental company to adjust those numbers Yeah, And adjust your table map and etcetera, etcetera. As things change, you're gonna want to come in and adjust everything. 11. Draft and Final Timeline: Okay, now that you've gone through your timeline like a 1,000,000 times, do one last check to ensure that all the timings makes sense because maybe as you were adjusting something, it changed the timing. And now you only have two minutes for a salad course or something like that. So go back and do one last check. Then about two weeks before your event stand out a draft Heinlein to your core team of vendors and any important individuals that are on the timeline asked them to ensure that everything makes sense and for feedback. Don't be surprised if they come back with a big change. This is why you sent it out so early so that you can deal with these last minute changes. If someone doesn't want to make a change, make sure that you make it to your timeline and notify anyone else that that change effects . Because when you change one thing, it's probably gonna change something else down the road. Also, don't be surprised if you don't hear from anyone during the 1st 2nd draft and then Onley hear from them on the final draft. I've had this happen a lot of times and although it's unfortunate, I am grateful that they're bringing this to my attention before the event happens. So in those situations, don't send out another final timeline. Instead, fix your personal timeline and contact everyone who that big change directly effects. And then you're gonna have to assorted out on the day of the event and confirmed verbally with your vendors about that, I know that you've been communicating with their vendors throughout the whole process. But Sunday, another draft and then a final version solidifies what's actually gonna happen and what the final decisions were. It also protects you from any kind of, he said. She said Battle, He didn't just confirm something on the phone, but now it's in writing and your vendors have all seen it once or twice. 12. Day-of Timeline Use: okay for the day of the event. Don't bother printing a timeline for your vendors. Unless they specifically asked for one Onley. Print them for the people who are gonna be referencing the timeline throughout the day. So on the day of the event, I use the timeline like a master checklists of everything that's gonna happen. And I follow along and check time by time as each time marker passes that things happen. So right now it's just afternoon. Did this thing happen? Yes, it did. Okay, that thing happened. Yes, it did. OK, now, at 12. 15 the florist is gonna be here. Let me go check to see if she's here yet. Go. Check, check, check. Can't find her now. It's told 30. Still not here. You know what? I'm gonna give her call. So in this way, you're catching the problems before they happen. Or as they happen rather than after the fact. So maybe she's just talking stuck in traffic. Maybe she needs more help with a certain project. You can help solve those problems early on. Right when you notice I'm rather than later on. Today was so much coming and going with people coming and going things coming to going people as asking questions. There's just so much going on that it's hard to make sure that everything's having as it's supposed to remember everything that has happened. So in this way, your timeline is your guide. It is the master of everything that's supposed to happen, and I feel like I have a pretty good memory. It is impossible to remember everything, so I really rely on the fact that I have pre thought through every single aspect of this event to make sure it happens as it's supposed to. 13. Timeline Pride and Thank You!: take a look at your timeline. Can you believe you created this document? I mean, I can't see it right now, but I'm sure it's amazing. And I'm really proud of you for putting some serious thought and energy into the time line because that means you're making steps to ensure that your event is gonna run smooth. Yeah. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope to be creating more videos on if it budgeting lefty music. But let me know what you wanna learn about by leaving me a comment. Also, don't forget to follow me. So when I do publish those classes that you'll be notified you soon, five.