Wedding day timeline template
An hour-by-hour run-of-show for the wedding day itself, built to be shared with vendors, your wedding party, and whoever ends up keeping the day on pace. Fill in your own times and owners, or copy it as-is and adjust from there.
Blank run-of-show
Copy this table into your own document, or print it and fill it in by hand. Add or remove rows as your day needs.
| Time | Activity | Owner | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | Hair & makeup begins | — | — |
| — | Getting-ready photos | — | — |
| — | First look / portraits | — | — |
| — | Wedding party photos | — | — |
| — | Family photos | — | — |
| — | Guests arrive & seated | — | — |
| — | Ceremony | — | — |
| — | Cocktail hour | — | — |
| — | Reception entrance | — | — |
| — | Dinner service | — | — |
| — | Toasts | — | — |
| — | First dance & traditions | — | — |
| — | Open dancing | — | — |
| — | Send-off | — | — |
A filled-in sample timeline
Sample — illustrative data for a 4:00 PM ceremony, not a real wedding.
| Time | Activity | Owner | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | Hair & makeup begins | Wedding party | Complete |
| 11:30 AM | Getting-ready photos | Photographer | Complete |
| 1:30 PM | First look & portraits | Photographer | Complete |
| 2:30 PM | Wedding party photos | Photographer | Upcoming |
| 3:00 PM | Family photos | Maid of Honor | Upcoming |
| 3:45 PM | Guests arrive & seated | Venue coordinator | Upcoming |
| 4:00 PM | Ceremony | Officiant | Upcoming |
| 4:30 PM | Cocktail hour | Caterer | Upcoming |
| 5:30 PM | Reception entrance | DJ | Upcoming |
| 6:00 PM | Dinner service | Caterer | Upcoming |
| 7:00 PM | Toasts | Best Man & Maid of Honor | Upcoming |
| 8:00 PM | Open dancing | DJ | Upcoming |
| 10:00 PM | Send-off | Best Man | Upcoming |
Building your own timeline
- Lock your ceremony time first. Every other block gets built backward and forward from that single anchor point.
- Work backward roughly 5–6 hours for hair and makeup, and 2–3 hours for photos, adjusting for your own group size.
- Assign an Owner to every block - a vendor or a specific wedding-party member - so nothing depends on the couple remembering it.
- Build in real buffer around photos and family portraits specifically; these are the blocks that run long most often.
- Share different levels of detail with different people: the full timeline to vendors and your coordinator, a simplified version to your wedding party, and a short version to guests.
For the full reasoning behind each block and common mistakes to avoid, see the companion guide: the wedding day timeline template guide.
Let Nozari do this for you, automatically
Nozari drafts a run-of-show around your ceremony time automatically, pulls in the events and vendors you've already added, and switches the whole thing into a live command center on the wedding day - no copy-pasting into a spreadsheet.