5 Ways to Ensure Your Wedding Starts on Time

5 Ways to Ensure Your Wedding Starts on Time

Most couples will admit that their wedding day zoomed past so quickly, even if a thousand things happened. The complications, stress, missed flights and family problems all tend to fade away in the euphoria and excitement of marrying your one true love. Looking back, there are plenty of couples who will admit they spent too much money on their wedding day festivities. After all, the most important thing is making a vow to the person you treasure most. Everything else is just window dressing. As you prepare for the day, one of the ways you can intentionally watch your expenses involves making sure the wedding and reception start and end on time. And also, late weddings can wreak havoc with your honeymoon schedule and stress out everyone involved. Consider the following five ways you can make sure that your wedding starts on time.

Make sure the bridal party gets ready in designated locations

Whether you have a large bridal party or a small one, make sure everyone is in one place. Make sure they’re accounted for by having them get ready in one location. The men can get ready in one area while the ladies get ready in another location. Talk to the hairdressers and makeup artists to get a good estimate of how long it’ll take to get ready. Make sure those in the bridal party arrive early enough to get ready without feeling rushed. By having people prepare in a designated location, you reduce the number of variables that can make your ceremony run late, like forgotten objects, traffic, and getting lost.

Hire drivers to take the bridal party to the ceremony location

Even if the bridal party experiences traffic on the way to the church or place of ceremony, it’s a lot easier to navigate through traffic when everyone is together. If everyone is taking their own time in separate cars, it can get pretty unruly and chaotic. And it’s difficult when the mother of the bride or a beloved uncle is the one holding everyone up. Do you wait, or go on without them? And what if you offend someone? A wedding bus hire is a great option to make sure everyone gets to each location in a timely fashion. Something else that also helps is to schedule your wedding for a time of day that doesn’t coincide with high traffic.

Coordinate the ceremony participants

The ceremony participants are important because if they’re late, the ceremony can’t go on. There are too many horror stories of ministers who were running late or even forgot the right day! To avoid this, make sure there is a car to pick up the minister, priest, or whoever you have led the ceremony, so he or she can arrive on time. Keep lines of communication open, and make sure you have a working phone number to call the various ceremony participants if you need to.

Hire a day-of coordinator

A day-of coordinator can make sure everyone is in place. It can be extremely stressful to handle day-of preparations and coordination on your own, especially with everything else you’ll be doing. Make sure the day-of coordinator is someone who doesn’t get flustered under pressure and can make sure everything flows smoothly. In this case, it’s wise to go with someone who is a wedding professional. Delegation is extremely important, and in the case of coordination, it can be helpful to choose someone outside the family, so they won’t be overcome with their own stress and excitement for this special day. (Click here to become a wedding planner)

Maintain back-up options

If a singer doesn’t show up or you’re missing the sound person, it’s always good to maintain a back-up. If you hire two singers to sing one song each, ask them to prepare to know each other’s songs as well, if possible. If one gets sick, you still have a singer who is prepared to perform both songs. Make sure you have extra cords, lights, and people who can operate the sound equipment.

When you’re running behind on your wedding day, this can actually cost you a lot of money. Be prepared, and you won’t need to stress out when things inevitably go wrong. This is one of the main reasons why so many couples are so intentional about making sure they stick to the time frame they paid for.

Don’t feel bad about making sure to communicate to your guests that timeliness is of the essence. It’s your big day. Since it’s your day, it’s your rules. Follow these tips to make sure your wedding starts and ends on time, to make the day run smoothly for everyone involved.

Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most of her time hiking, biking, and gardening. For more information, contact Brooke via Facebook at facebook.com/brooke.chaplan or Twitter @BrookeChaplan