LDS Wedding Timeline

The most important thing to nail down when wedding planning is the timeline of your wedding day! This will be critical when doing all your wedding planning and coordinating vendors. If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, there are some unique wedding traditions that require a different kind of timeline than other wedding days! Here is a timeline “builder” with all the information that you need to know to be able to build your own LDS Wedding timeline as well as a few general tips.

General Tips

1. Always put EXTRA time, not less time into your timeline. Extra pockets of time through out the day will allow us to stay on schedule if anything goes wrong. Even though I know I can take all the “temple ground, family and bridal party and couple” photos in 90mins-2 hours, you MUST budget 2 hours for those photos.
2. Don’t forget about travel or traffic. Keeping your venues as close together as possible will help you to not have to worry about this, but if there is a big college game, a holiday weekend or just normal rush hour, you will want to account for if you are driving to another venue!

Usual wedding day events and times! 

Temple Sealing

Depending on the temple informational packet that you receive, you will need to arrive to the temple an hour to 90 mins ahead of your sealing. Your actual sealing cannot be photographed. In general, a sealing from start to walking out the door takes around 35-90 mins. *The SLC Temple is busy and more usually 60-90 mins.

Temple Exit, Family Portraits, Bridal Party and Couple Portraits all on Temple grounds

Family portraits usually take around one hour, and bridal party takes around 30 mins. Couple portraits around the temple take around 30mins.

Luncheon or family meal

This family meal is unique to LDS weddings because usually it is a meal earlier in the day, hence the name “luncheon.” A family meal closer to the wedding reception is also great as well!! This is a great chance for traditional things that require a captive audience, such as a slide show of photos, toasts or speeches, family musical numbers, presentations of gifts, small ring ceremonies, etc!

Reception 

Receptions almost never end exactly on time so setting a 2 hour reception, will almost always bleed over into around a 2.5 hour reception! Starting a little earlier than you might think will help your reception be over at an earlier hour and you can avoid getting too tired during your reception! Example (setting a 6-8pm reception will have you walking out the door between 8 and 8:30pm, but a 7-9pm reception will have you walking out the door between 9 and 9:30pm. After a long day of weddinging, your body and minds will be very tired!)

1. Temple Sealing 35-50 mins! *
2. Temple Exit, Family Portraits, Bridal Party and Couple Portraits all on Temple grounds:  2-2.5 hours.
3. Travel
4. Luncheon or Dinner: 90 mins-2 hours.
5. Travel
6. Reception : 2-3 hours

• Reception Tradition Timeline
• • Receiving Line: 30 mins-90 mins
  • Cut the Cake: 5 mins
  • Grand Exit: 10-15min