Timeline - How to plan for everything, BEFORE the wedding day

Let's dive in! A timeline is a super important tool to have on your wedding day. It is how everyone knows what's going on. We call it a flow of events, because a timeline is great but it's never executed perfectly.

In our experience we have found you can build pieces into the timeline that give you some wiggle room. By creating a better flow of events, and realistic expectations of how long an activity will take, this makes a better day and have you feeling less I'M RUNNING BEHIND!

1. Getting ready
Gents take no time to get ready, but ladies are in a room filled with hair tools, extensions, false eyelashes, dresses everywhere, all different types of shoes, and not to mention mimosas, Starbucks cups half empty and all in a tiny tiny hotel room because that's just how we ladies roll.
Ensure you give yourself enough time to have hair and makeup done but also time to get into your dresses, find all your accessories, have your purse, hotel key. Get a schedule from the hair and makeup team and then add more time on the back end as things always run behind getting beautified.

2. Access time
Some venues give you less time to access the space. This is something you can plan for. You either ask for earlier access time, or understand you are hiring a larger team to have a finished product before guest arrival to the ceremony and/or reception space.
Here is Erika & Michael's wedding at Cecil Green featured on our blog. Take a look as we describe how we brought this together!

3. Dress changes
Some of our brides need to change dresses depending on the occasion! Take Demi & Wayne's wedding at Dockside Restaurant, Demi wore a wedding dress for the ceremony and switched to a beautiful Kimono only worn on weddings or special occasions. It took 3 ladies 1.5 hours to get her into the dress, so this had to be written in the timeline! See Antonya & Bhavy's wedding dress AND groom attire change on our blog!

4. Load in / load out
Consider how many vendors or people are loading in. Or how challenging is the load in? Is the venue new? Is it old? Is it large? Are there service elevators? Are there loading bays? Are the bays made for small cars or giant trucks? Our advice, do a site visit with your vendors or ask your venue for instructions you can forward to your vendors. If there is a load in challenge at the start, it knocks the timeline. Take a venue like Vancouver Club. It's a heritage building, therefore the load in design wasn't built for today. But they give you tons of time to load in, it's just a matter of planning for it. Or take Kiana & Garrets wedding at Sunwolf, where we built a venue in the middle of the green forest under a clear tent.

Pro tip: Have your groom and his friend and/or dad to deliver the alcohol (if you are providing your own alcohol for the wedding day). And yes, bring a wagon or dolly or be prepared to hand bomb everything.

5. Travel
MAP IT OUT! Consider travel time, the time you are travelling, traffic and if anything is going on? Example. Travelling from Vancouver to Mission is 1 hour. HOWEVER, if fireworks are going on downtown, you're looking at over 3 hours just to get a limo out of downtown. Always always always add in extra time for travel, it is never ever exact.  Consider what is travelling. Is it a little red corvette? Is it a limo that can't turn easily? Is it a catering van from 2005 filled with food? Google maps doesn't accommodate the vehicle, driver and load.

5b. Events
Ask your venue, hotel or use the google and ask, are there events happening on your wedding day? Is there a run? Is there a bike event? Are the roads closed? Is it a car free day? Get this info before so you can plan ahead! 

Pro tip: To reduce the travel time, consider booking a hotel room near, or at the your venue. You can eliminate the stress by staying overnight, and by staying close by, you're not accommodating crazy travel times.

All we can say, ADD IN THOSE BUFFERS! If you're running ahead, GREAT! If you're not, you've put in the extra time!