A wedding reception timeline usually runs about five hours: an hour of drinks, then around four hours of dinner, speeches and dancing. The order inside those hours barely changes. Where each moment sits depends on four fixed points: what your finish time means, the last transport out, the kitchen's service window and the light.
If you would rather not hold it yourself, Wedded Concierge can manage the timeline and logistics for you. Our wedding day timeline covers the hours before the reception.
The hour for drinks, the hour for dinner and the cake cue come from Lin & Jirsa's reception timeline, written by a Southern California photography studio, and Dockside Group's venue timeline runs the same five-hour shape. The other lengths are planning estimates for about 100 guests, so replace them with your caterer's figures.
The order, with rough lengths and the reason for each place:
Drinks: About an hour, for family photographs, your portraits and the buffer for a late ceremony.
Guests seated: 15 to 20 minutes, longer with a big guest list.
Your entrance and welcome: 5 to 10 minutes for a walk-in, with any blessing or procession.
First course: On the table soon after you sit, so nobody listens to speeches hungry.
Speeches: About half an hour, before the meal, between courses or after it.
Main course: Lin & Jirsa allow about an hour for the whole dinner.
Evening portraits: A shorter set of 20 to 30 minutes while plates are cleared.
Dessert and cake: 20 to 30 minutes, where you want the night to start winding down.
First dance and open floor: 5 to 10 minutes for the dance, then the band or DJ takes over.
Late-night food: Out while the floor is busy, so nobody leaves early to eat.
Last song and exit: 10 to 15 minutes, finished before the last transport.
A reception timeline is easiest to build from the times you can't move, then fill in around them. Most receptions have four: the finish time, the last transport out, the kitchen's service window and sunset. Write these four at the top of the run sheet, with a fifth if a faith or cultural moment has a set time.
A venue's finish time can mean music off, bar shut, guests off the property, or suppliers packed down and gone, and those can sit an hour apart. Ask your venue coordinator, in writing, which one the contract means and whether it comes from venue policy, its licence or a planning condition. A time set by a licence or permit won't stretch on the night, and load-out may count inside it.
If guests leave by coach, shuttle, boat or booked cars, the last pick-up is fixed too. Ask how many trips it takes to move everyone, because a coach looping to two hotels moves guests in waves. Then set the last song early enough for your exit and the final departure.
The chef needs everyone seated before the first course is fired, and every course takes a set time to plate, serve and clear. Ask your caterer how many minutes each course takes at your guest count and service style, whether plated, shared or buffet. The same course takes longer to serve to 200 than to 60.
Your ceremony time decides where sunset falls in the reception, so check sunset for your date rather than the month. In cooler months the light can go before drinks begin: take portraits straight after the ceremony, or plan night portraits after dessert. In summer, golden hour may fall during dinner, which is what the second portrait set is for.
This example assumes a seated, plated dinner for about 100, speeches between courses and a finish that means guests off site at 11pm:
5:30pm, drinks and canapés (60 minutes): Family photographs, then your portraits.
6:30pm, guests seated (15 minutes)
6:45pm, your entrance and welcome (10 minutes)
6:55pm, first course (25 minutes)
7:20pm, speeches (30 minutes)
7:50pm, main course (60 minutes): Including clearing.
8:50pm, evening portraits (20 minutes): You step out while the band sets up.
9:10pm, cake cutting and dessert (20 minutes)
9:30pm, first dance, then the floor opens (60 minutes)
10:00pm, late-night food: Served at the edge of the floor.
10:30pm, last song: The MC announces it.
10:35pm, your exit (10 minutes)
10:45pm, last transport leaves
11:00pm, guests off site: Suppliers start load-out.
Drinks at 5:30pm suit a summer evening. For an earlier ceremony or a winter date, move every time earlier by the same amount, then finish earlier or give the floor the extra hours. If speeches follow the meal, move the block after the main and serve dessert during it.
The five-hour example is the middle case, and most receptions are a version of it. Keep the same order of events and change only how long each one runs. Protect the kitchen's window first, then take time from drinks, portraits or the dance floor.
Take the hour out without touching the kitchen: drinks drop from 60 to 45 minutes, the evening portraits go, and the open floor runs 35 minutes instead of 60. Serve the cake as dessert and start speeches as soon as the first course lands. Tell the MC the plan in advance, because four hours leaves no slack for a speech that runs over.
If your reception starts late and runs past midnight, serve real food from arrival, because guests may not have eaten since lunch. Make your entrance once the room is full rather than at a set clock time. Check the venue's licence and noise curfew before you plan past midnight, and book late-night food and transport to match the later finish.
A lunch reception keeps the order but ends in daylight, with a shorter dance set. If the venue has an evening booking after yours, that turnaround is your real finish time. Natural light carries the whole day, so plan portraits around the brightest part of the afternoon rather than sunset.
Abroad, ask your venue when local staff expect to serve dinner, who sets the music hours and when supplier overtime begins, and confirm any halal menu with the chef early. Check sunset and prayer times for the venue's own town: Maghrib begins just after sunset, so on a winter date it can land during drinks. Guests on long-haul flights tire sooner, so keep the speeches and first dance before the cake and let them know they can leave once it is cut.
On a wedding weekend, the welcome dinner can take the longer toasts and a message from family who can't travel, recorded ahead so nobody overseas stays up for a live call. Send the welcome dinner and farewell brunch times with the reception's, so guests book flights around all three. A second celebration, at home or abroad, gets its own run sheet, with a short toast in place of speeches already given.
Keep each speech to five minutes at most and the block to about half an hour, as our wedding speech guide sets out. Spreading speeches between courses stops the kitchen holding hot food behind a long toast, so tell your chef which placement you choose.
If both families are hosting, agree early whether each side has a speaker, and in what order. Give every speaker their limit in writing, and agree a signal the MC can give if anyone runs long. A speech in two languages takes longer, so either allow for it or print a translation at each place.
Entrances with music and dancing can run far longer than a walk-in. Ask whoever leads yours for a timed run-through, and serve the first course before any long stretch of performances.
A dress change needs its own slot, so ask your hair and make-up team how long theirs takes. Put it after the main so you don't miss dinner, ask the band or DJ to cover the gap, and have the MC announce your return.
Lin & Jirsa suggest cutting the cake about an hour before the exit, which tells guests the party is winding down. Place it where you want guests to feel free to leave. If your guests stay long after the cake, or there is none, let the last song or the MC give that cue.
Dance first straight after your entrance on a short reception, or after dessert to pull people onto the floor on a long one. Where evening guests join later, the cake and first dance open the evening once they arrive. For songs, start with our first dance songs and dance floor songs.
Write these fixes into the run sheet now:
The ceremony starts late: Shorten drinks, not dinner, and seat guests at the planned time so the kitchen's times hold.
The kitchen runs slow: The MC moves to the next planned moment instead of filling the gap with an unplanned speech.
Rain moves drinks indoors: Ask your venue now how long it takes to turn a room, and where guests wait meanwhile.
The noise limiter trips: Ask where the venue's limiter is set before you book a band.
The photographer's hours end first: Stage your exit inside the booked coverage, then go back in to the party.
One person holds the master copy and takes every supplier call on the night: your planner, the venue coordinator or the MC, rather than the couple or the hosts. Print their mobile, and a backup's, at the top of every version.
Then make a version for each group:
Suppliers: The full sheet, plus arrival, set-up, meal break and load-out. Serve their meal while guests eat.
MC or toastmaster: Speaker order, minute limits, names spelled as they're said, and each announcement word for word.
Stationer: The final order and times before the proof date for an order of the day or menu cards, so ask for that date when you order. A card in two languages needs both proofs checked.
Bridal party: Where to be and when, photos included.
Guests: One page or your wedding website, with the start time, when dinner is served and when the last transport leaves.
Send a near-final version to suppliers and guests about two weeks before, and lock it a week out. Check what your band or DJ needs with our questions to ask your DJ or band.
The order above holds wherever you marry. These are the local points that change it.
Decide early between an Acknowledgement of Country and a Welcome to Country. Reconciliation Australia says anyone can offer an Acknowledgement, while Traditional Owners deliver a Welcome, which your local Aboriginal Land Council or Native Title body can help arrange. Give either its place in the welcome, once the room is seated.
Autumn light goes early: Sydney's sunset on Saturday 15 May 2027 is 5:02pm (sunrise-and-sunset.com). The worked example's 5:30pm drinks would start after dark, so hold the ceremony at about 3pm and take portraits during drinks from 3:30pm. Moving every time back two hours puts guests off site at 9pm, so to keep an 11pm finish, give the floor the extra time. At a Hunter Valley or other regional estate, ask whether the finish time is a council approval condition, whether the kitchen is the venue's own or a marquee set-up, and how long the coach loop to guest accommodation takes.
Ask any MC you shortlist whether they settle run sheet timing with the DJ, AV and venue teams, as Nathan Cassar on Wedded Marketplace does. Browse Sydney wedding DJs and planners.
An Emirati wedding keeps the men's and women's celebrations in separate halls, with the groom entering the bride's hall later in the night (Gulf News), so give each hall its own run sheet. The National puts the bride's celebration at about three to four hours.
A mixed reception follows the order above, built around the entrance and dinner rather than the bar. Hold the prayer pause between courses so the kitchen can wait, offer a quiet room and consider an MC who works in Arabic and English. The zaffa takes the entrance slot, so ask the troupe how long it runs. Check Maghrib and Isha on the Khaleej Times prayer timetable, or a local one abroad.
Ramadan 2027 is projected to begin on 8 February, subject to the moon sighting (The National). Guests flying home before the first fast may leave early, so bring the cake and first dance forward and time the last transport to match. For a wedding in Dubai, see our Dubai wedding planners.
A UK day often runs family photographs, a drinks reception, the wedding breakfast, then speeches: traditionally the father of the bride, the groom and the best man, though modern orders often add the mother of the bride or the bride herself. Evening guests arrive next for the cake, the first dance and evening food, so use the worked example's speeches-after-the-meal version. Tredudwell Manor in Cornwall allows 90 minutes to two hours for drinks and starts the evening reception from about 7pm, so set your own evening time before the evening invitations print. A member of the Guild of International Professional Toastmasters can keep the speeches to time.
At a country house or marquee, ask whether the caterer cooks in a house kitchen or a field kitchen, and whether a planning condition on noise stops the music before the licence does. GOV.UK guidance says music needs no licence between 8am and 11pm at alcohol-licensed premises for audiences of 500 or fewer, so later hours depend on your venue's licence. London's sunset on the 2027 June solstice is 9:20pm (sunrise-and-sunset.com), so portraits can wait until after the first dance. For a wedding in or near London, see our wedding planners and wedding DJs there.
The order above already follows the usual US shape, with the one-hour cocktail hour Lin & Jirsa plan. Ask whether cocktail hour runs in a separate room, and how long the main room takes to reset if it also holds the ceremony.
New York's sunset on 15 October 2027 is 6:15pm (sunrise-and-sunset.com), so after a 5pm ceremony the light goes during cocktail hour; start earlier for daylight portraits. Read the overtime clause in every contract, price any extra hour before you sign and book shuttles for after the send-off. For a wedding abroad, use the travel notes above.
Through Wedded Concierge, your Wedded Advisor or our team manages your timeline and logistics, so the run sheet and its event-week changes are handled for you. Your advisor can also source and coordinate the MC, band and planner who keep the night to time. To browse MCs, bands and planners first, start on Wedded Marketplace.
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Joseph Joshua is the SEO & Content Manager at Wedded Wonderland, bringing an editorial and search strategy perspective to the publication’s coverage of luxury weddings, destination celebrations and bridal lifestyle. His approach to content centres on helping readers move from inspiration to informed decisions, with attention to the design, craftsmanship and personal details that give a celebration its character.
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