Create your wedding day timeline.
Build a personalized wedding day schedule from your ceremony time, photos, travel, and traditions. Edit every moment, print it or save it as a PDF — then let Text My Wedding text each person exactly where to be, right when it matters.
From blank page to a day that runs itself
Build your wedding day schedule once. Everyone who needs to be somewhere gets a text — so you're not the one herding people on your wedding day.
Build your timeline
Generate a schedule from a few questions, start from a template or sample timeline, and drag in common moments — shuttle pickups, toasts, the send-off — wherever they fit.
Flag who to remind
Flip on "Send a text" for any moment — ceremony line-up, first look, toasts — to add the people who need a heads-up at that time.
Let us text them on the day
We send each person their piece of the wedding day itinerary right on schedule: where to be, when, and what's happening. No group-chat chaos.
Build your wedding day schedule
Everything's editable — times, moments, locations. Flip on "Send a text" where someone needs a nudge, and we'll handle the rest.
Building the timeline is free. Let us text your wedding party & family their itinerary right on schedule so nobody's asking "wait, where do I need to be?"
Your ceremony starts at 2:30pm — we'll text your wedding party at 2:15pm so line-up just happens.
Sample wedding timelines by ceremony time
Real wedding timeline examples for 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm ceremonies — built by the same generator, ready to load and make your own.
4pm wedding timeline
The most popular ceremony time for a reason: a 4pm wedding day timeline fits hair & makeup comfortably in the morning, portraits before the ceremony via a first look, and still lands dinner at a normal hour.
Best for: the classic full wedding day — this is our default schedule.
Loads this schedule into the generator — adjust every moment from there.
The wedding-day group chat, retired
How to plan a wedding timeline
Every great wedding day timeline is built the same way: start from your ceremony time and work outward in both directions.
Start with the ceremony, then work backwards
Your ceremony start time is the one moment that's fixed — it's on the invitations. Everything before it is subtraction: line-up about 15 minutes before, a first look around 90 minutes before, the photographer arriving about 3 hours before, and hair & makeup starting early enough for everyone on the chair list. That's exactly how our generator drafts your morning.
Wedding ceremony timeline & order of events
Most wedding ceremonies run 20–30 minutes (a full Catholic mass runs closer to an hour — pad everything after it). The typical ceremony order of events:
- Guests arrive and are seated (30 minutes before)
- Processional — wedding party, then the couple
- Welcome, readings, and vows
- Ring exchange and first kiss
- Recessional, then guests head to cocktail hour
Wedding reception timeline & order of events
The reception schedule is where timelines win or lose. The classic wedding reception order of events, with standard durations:
- Cocktail hour — 60–90 minutes (longer if photos happen now, or if guests travel between venues)
- Grand entrance & dinner — 90 minutes to 2 hours depending on plated, buffet, or family-style service
- Toasts & speeches — during dinner, about 5 minutes per speaker
- First dance & parent dances— right after dinner, while everyone's still seated
- Cake cutting — about 30 minutes later; it also politely signals guests who need to leave early
- Open dancing — the rest of the night
- Grand exit— 15 minutes before the venue's hard end time
Photography timeline: with or without a first look
The single biggest fork in any wedding photography timeline is the first look. A wedding timeline with a first look puts couple, wedding party, and family photos beforethe ceremony — you get to attend your own cocktail hour. A wedding timeline without a first look moves those photos into cocktail hour, so stretch it to 90 minutes and make sure the people needed for photos know where to be. (That's a text we're happy to send for you.)
Adapt it to your wedding, not the other way around
A backyard wedding timeline can skip travel entirely; a church wedding usually needs 30–45 minutes of travel built in before the reception; a small or brunch wedding can compress dinner and skip traditions you don't care about. The generator above handles venues, travel time, hair & makeup headcount, cocktail-hour length, dinner style, and traditions — and every moment stays editable afterward.
Don't forget the bar
Once the schedule is set, the other big day-of question is how much to buy for the bar. Our free wedding alcohol calculator turns your guest count and reception hours into an exact shopping list of beer, wine, spirits and mixers.
Share one source of truth
Give your planner, photographer, DJ, and venue the same schedule. Export your finished timeline as a printable PDF for vendors, and let the automatic texts deliver each guest's slice of the itinerary — so the version everyone follows is always the current one.
Wedding timeline questions, answered
Is the wedding timeline generator really free?
Yes — build, edit, export, and print your full wedding day timeline for free, no card needed. You only upgrade if you want us to automatically text your wedding party and family their reminders on the day.
Can I use this as a wedding timeline template?
Absolutely. Load the classic full-day template, or start from a sample wedding timeline for a 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, or 6pm ceremony and adjust from there. It works like an editable wedding day timeline template — every time, moment, and location is yours to change — without fighting a spreadsheet or PDF template.
Can I print my wedding timeline or save it as a PDF?
Yes. Export / print produces a clean, printable wedding timeline — use your browser's Save as PDF option to get a wedding timeline PDF you can email to your planner, photographer, and venue.
What is a good wedding timeline for a 5pm ceremony?
For a 5pm ceremony, most couples skip the first look and move wedding party and family photos into a longer cocktail hour: hair & makeup late morning, ceremony at 5, cocktail hour with photos from 5:30, dinner around 6:30–7, and a send-off near 10:30. See the 5pm sample timeline above — you can load it into the generator and customize it.
What order do things go in at a wedding reception?
The classic wedding reception order of events: cocktail hour, grand entrance, dinner, toasts and speeches during or right after dinner, first dance and parent dances, cake cutting, open dancing, and the grand exit. Our generator lays these out with standard durations, and you can reorder or cut anything.
Who gets the day-of texts?
Anyone you add to a moment — bridesmaids, groomsmen, parents, the flower crew. Each person gets a friendly text right before their moment saying where to be and what's happening. No app or account for them.
Can I change the timeline after I've set it up?
Any time. Edit times, rename moments, add or remove people — reminders update automatically. Great for the inevitable last-minute "actually, photos moved to 1:15."
Can I share it with my planner or vendors?
Yes — export a clean PDF or print a copy so your planner, photographer, and venue are all working from the same wedding day schedule.
Your whole day, on one
calm little timeline.
Build your wedding day schedule free in five minutes — then let the reminders run so you can actually be present.