A Realistic Wedding Day Schedule
It was three weeks before our wedding day and oh how stressed I was. I was losing sleep each night as I laid awake while my mind was going over every little detail and playing out the entire day in my head over and over again. Talk about crazy! Did I mention that I am a type “A” personality? It was killing me… until something finally clicked , “THE HUMAN FACTOR” and then just like that I was able to fall asleep and rest.
So what the heck is “THE HUMAN FACTOR“?!
Ok basically here it is: on your wedding day, everything will take longer than you think, from getting your hair done to getting dressed. And mishaps will happen (trust us!). I know that’s not what you want to hear but it happens — from misplaced vows to terrible traffic. Your probably thinking, “How the heck did this help you get to sleep?”!!
Strange I know, but this is why it worked. Three weeks before our wedding, because of “THE HUMAN FACTOR” I sat down and ran back through the day-of schedule and instead of having everything happing back to back (rush rush) I added in room for “THE HUMAN FACTOR” + extra time to deal with them. All together I add in about 2 hours to the timeline.
For example:
- Hair + Makeup was slated to take 2 hours – but on the day of timeline I factored in 3 hours to make sure if anything went wrong we had plenty of time to fix it.
- I bumped up the floral delivery to an hour earlier.
- I gave myself a full hour to get into my wedding dress, which was such a blessing. It gave me time to really enjoy being with all my family and friends while getting ready and totally took out the rush factor.
All of these little tweaks gave me so much peace of mind before our wedding day even arrived. They helped me sleep and relieved my stress. Everything worked out beautifully, no one was rushed or stressed. And yes, little mishaps did happen – like one of the loops on my dress breaking. But it was no big deal because I had factored in time. With that extra time my mom, who is a seamstress, pulled out her needle and thread and in 5 mins had it fixed. My hair and makeup ran over by about 20 mins but again no big deal because I had planned in an extra hour.
Today as wedding photographers, Brandon and I always review a sample day of timeline with our couples during their wedding consultation. We chat about “THE HUMAN FACTOR“, how to relieve wedding day stress and adding in a little additional time so you can take in a deep breath on your wedding day and truly enjoy it.
Oh and a little side note:
The day of our wedding I arrived at my getting ready location an hour before everyone else to make sure I was set up. I hung up my dress, got out my perfume, shoes, jewelry, garter and my something blue, borrowed + old. I had everything ready to go for both photos and for myself. Then I took some time took just enjoy the morning quiet.
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