Wedding Day Timeline Builder
Set six things and this builds your whole photography timeline around the real sunset for your date in Omaha or Lincoln, Nebraska. Print the result and hand it to your planner.
How this works
Almost every wedding timeline problem is really a light problem. The ceremony is set for the hour that suits the church, dinner for the hour that suits the caterer, and nobody works out until the week before that the sun goes down in the middle of the toasts.
So this starts from your ceremony time, works backwards through preparation and forwards through the reception, and places your portraits against the computed sunset for your date.
Everything is calculated in your browser, sunset math included. Nothing is sent anywhere and your plan is saved only on this device.
Wedding day photography timeline
Saturday, January 30, 2027 · Omaha, NE
Your day
Saturday, January 30, 202710 hr of coverage, 12:00 p.m. through to 10:00 p.m.. Sunset in Omaha, NE that day is 5:37 p.m., with the golden window opening around 4:57 p.m..
The best light of the day lands in the middle of your family formals. That is workable but it needs a decision in advance: we cut that block short, take the two of you outside for fifteen minutes while the light is there, and finish the rest afterwards. Deciding this on the day is how the light gets missed.
- 12:00 p.m.45 min
Details and heirloomsPreparation
Rings, invitation suite, shoes, jewelry, the dress on a decent hanger, anything borrowed. Have it all in one place in a room with a window and this takes half the time.
- 12:45 p.m.45 min
Getting readyPreparation
Candid coverage in both rooms while hair and makeup finish. This is where most of the honest laughing happens.
- 1:30 p.m.20 min
Into the dressPreparation
Buttons, zips, and whoever you want in the room for it. We shoot from the doorway unless you say otherwise.
- 1:50 p.m.15 min
Travel to the first lookPreparation
Dress, veil, bouquet, and two people who know where the rings are. We drive separately and set up before you arrive.
- 2:05 p.m.30 min
First lookPortraits
Somewhere quiet with no guests in sight. We shoot it long from a distance first, then move in close once you have both stopped noticing us.
- 2:35 p.m.25 min
Couple portraitsPortraits
Doing these before the ceremony is what buys your cocktail hour back. We will still steal you for ten minutes later when the light turns.
- 3:00 p.m.25 min
Wedding party portraitsPortraits
Everybody is dressed, sober, and in one place — this never happens again all day.
- 3:25 p.m.15 min
BreathePreparation
Fifteen minutes of nothing. Water, a snack, a moment with your people. Every timeline that skips this runs late.
- 3:40 p.m.20 min
Guests arrive — you stay out of sightPreparation
We cover the ceremony space, the programs, and the guests finding their seats while you are hidden.
- 4:00 p.m.30 min
CeremonyCeremony
Two cameras, no flash unless the room forces it, and we stay at the back and the sides. Ask your officiant to step aside for the kiss — it is the one frame you cannot reshoot.
- 4:30 p.m.15 min
Recessional and first hugsCeremony
Guests will find you immediately. We let it happen for ten minutes, then someone loud needs to start moving people towards cocktail hour.
- 4:45 p.m.32 min
Family formalsPortraits
8 groupings at roughly four minutes each. Send us the list in advance and nominate one relative from each side to call names — that single decision is worth twenty minutes.
- 5:17 p.m.15 min
Travel to the receptionPreparation
We go ahead of you to photograph the room before anyone touches it.
- 5:32 p.m.20 min
Reception room, untouchedReception
Tables, place cards, florals, the cake, the whole room empty and lit. Ask your caterer to hold the doors twenty minutes — every planner will thank you for these frames.
- 5:52 p.m.15 min
Grand entrance and first danceReception
Doing the first dance on the entrance keeps everyone in the room and gets it done while the light is still ours to control.
- 6:07 p.m.50 min
Dinner servedReception
We eat when you eat, which means feeding us at the same time as your guests rather than last. Nobody wants photographs of people chewing.
- 6:57 p.m.20 min
ToastsReception
Keep it to three speakers and put a drink in front of each of them first.
- 7:17 p.m.15 min
Parent dancesReception
Half songs are fine and usually kinder to everyone involved.
- 7:32 p.m.10 min
Cake cuttingReception
Small moment, quick to shoot, and it signals to guests that dancing is about to open.
- 7:42 p.m.2 hr 3 min
Open dancingReception
Where the loose, unpretty, genuinely good pictures come from. Anything you want photographed — a bouquet toss, a hora, a dollar dance — belongs in the first half of this.
- 9:45 p.m.15 min
Last dance and send-offReception
Even a small send-off with twenty people and sparklers photographs better than an empty room at midnight.
This is a starting point, not a contract. Every venue bends it — a church with a hard 4 p.m. out, a reception hall that will not let us in early, a family list twice as long as anyone admitted. Bring it to your planner and let them argue with it.
The light that day
Omaha, NEFull sunrise, blue hour, and a month-at-a-glance view live in the golden hour calculator.