Afternoon wedding timeline: a 4 PM ceremony schedule

An afternoon ceremony is the most common choice, and 4 PM is the classic time: late enough for a slow morning, early enough for photos in daylight and a full dinner and dance after. This guide is a complete 4 PM ceremony timeline, from hair and makeup at 11 AM to the send-off at 10:15 PM, with why each block sits where it does.

A 4 PM ceremony timeline

This schedule is for a 4:00 PM ceremony of 30 minutes, an hour of cocktails and a five-hour reception. It's the timeline our free timeline maker builds from a 4 PM ceremony.

| Time | The day | Notes | |---|---|---| | 11:00 AM | Hair and makeup begins | Eat something before it gets busy | | 1:00 PM | Lunch while hair is finished | Photographer arrives for detail shots | | 2:00 PM | Get dressed | Florist delivers bouquets and buttonholes | | 2:30 PM | Photos with the wedding party | Keep the two of you apart if there's no first look | | 3:15 PM | Ushers seat guests | The two of you stay out of sight | | 3:45 PM | Line up for the processional | Officiant checks in with you both | | 4:00 PM | Ceremony begins | Phones away: ask the officiant to say so | | 4:30 PM | Recessional | Straight to photos | | 4:35 PM | Cocktail hour for guests | Bar opens and canapés go round | | 4:40 PM | Family photos | Hand the photographer a printed list | | 5:20 PM | Freshen up before the entrance | | | 5:30 PM | Grand entrance | | | 5:45 PM | Dinner is served | Ask the caterer to bring your plates first | | 6:45 PM | Toasts | | | 7:15 PM | First dance | | | 7:30 PM | Dances with family | | | 7:45 PM | Dance floor opens | | | 8:30 PM | Cake cutting | | | 10:00 PM | Last dance | | | 10:15 PM | Send-off | Check the venue's rules on sparklers | | 10:30 PM | Reception ends | Name someone to take home gifts and décor |

Before the ceremony: five hours

Hair and makeup starts at 11 AM, five hours before the ceremony. That suits a bride and three or four people with one stylist and one makeup artist, with a little slack at the end. Lunch goes in at 1 PM, delivered to both getting-ready rooms, because nobody will remember to eat otherwise.

The groom's afternoon is shorter: a slow start, getting ready from 1 PM and dressed by 2. His column on the timeline can carry the jobs that free the bride's: collecting the rings, checking the buttonholes arrived, and making sure the ushers know where reserved seats are.

Wedding party photos at 2:30 PM leave 45 minutes before guests start to arrive. If you're not doing a first look, the photographer shoots each side separately and keeps the two of you apart until the aisle.

The cocktail hour does two jobs

Guests get a drink; you get photos. Family photos start five minutes after the recessional and take about 40 minutes, which is why the cocktail hour is an hour. Give the photographer a printed list of groups and ask a relative who knows everyone to call names. Ten groups is plenty.

At 4:30 PM in most seasons there's still good light, so ask the photographer for ten minutes of portraits of the two of you before you freshen up for the entrance.

Dinner, toasts and dancing

The grand entrance at 5:30 PM leads straight into dinner 15 minutes later. Toasts come an hour into dinner, once the main course is served and people are still seated. Keep it to two or three speakers of two to three minutes each.

The first dance follows the toasts at 7:15 PM, then dances with family, then the dance floor opens. Some couples move the first dance to straight after the grand entrance, while everyone is watching; either works, so pick one and tell the DJ or band.

Cake cutting at 8:30 PM gives the caterer time to plate it as dessert. After that, the dance floor runs until the last dance at 10 PM and the send-off at 10:15 PM.

When the venue has a hard stop

Many venues end at 10 or 11 PM and charge overtime by the hour. Read the end time in your contract, then plan backwards: the last dance 30 minutes before the end, the send-off 15 minutes before. If the reception is shorter than five hours, cut dancing time first; the cake cutting can go if it doesn't fit.

Other afternoon times

A 2 PM or 3 PM ceremony uses the same shape, an hour or two earlier: getting ready from about 9 AM, and a reception that finishes around 8:30 PM. From 5 PM, the day changes enough to need its own plan; see the evening wedding timeline. Before noon, read the morning wedding timeline.

Make it your own

Open the afternoon template in the free wedding day timeline maker and type your own ceremony time. Edit any row, add what only your day has, and use Shift to move a row and everything after it when something changes. Our guide to how to make a wedding day timeline covers buffers, sending it to vendors and running the day from it.

To keep it, create a free account: the timeline becomes your Wedding Day timeline, with your first names on the columns, and Day-of mode shows what's now and next on your phone. Complete adds a Rehearsal Dinner timeline for the night before.