300 minutes
| By Richard ~ January 14th, 2010 ~ Wedding Planning | Comments Off |
Event timing is one of the most important thing that our clients need to understand. To help them do so, I often talk about their “300 minutes.” Notwithstanding the ceremony, the typical wedding reception lasts about that long. An hour for cocktails and four for dinner and dancing. Doesn’t seem that long, does it? It isn’t! Now let’s translate that to “minutes per guest.” If you have 150 guests, you have 2 minutes to spend with each guest!
So what does this mean from a practical standpoint? Five key things:
Plan
Know what’s going to happen and when it will happen. Make decisions ahead of time, don’t get caught trying to figure things out on the spot. If you don’t know when your father will give his welcome remarks, having a three minute discussion about it at the wedding will cost you 1% of your time.
Make decisions about what really matters
Do you really need to take all those pictures of your extended family? On the fence about a garter ceremony? is it worth 3% of your wedding? What about a receiving line? That’s 10% of your wedding. Still need it?
Communicate
Make sure everyone knows what is expected of them before your wedding. This applies to both vendors and those who will participate in your wedding. The band leader needs to know your song selection, the photographer needs to know what pictures are critical, and the best man needs to know when he will give the first toast.
Do whatever you can outside of the five hour window
Here the most common culprit is family pictures. If it’s possible – not a certainty, you will need to check with the venue – you are better off getting family members to arrive early for pictures than doing them during the reception. Otherwise, there goes another 10%.
Last but not least, arrive on time
Again, not to pick on photographers, but bridal parties will often want to go somewhere special for pictures between the ceremony and reception (in New York it’s typically Central Park.) Before you know it, the ceremony will begin and you won’t be there.
Remember, these three hundred minutes can be the best minutes of your life; use them wisely!
