I recently received a fabulous question from a South Asian bride working on the timeline of her big day. As a maharani, your wedding day is complied with multiple ceremonies that require you to get up often before the chickens. So how in the world to you squeeze everything into one day and keep your sanity?

The answer lies in a FABULOUS timeline and a GREAT wedding planner to keep you, your wedding party, family and guest on track. Today’s question is about timing between the ceremony and reception.

How long of a break are you having (or did you have) in between your ceremony and reception?  I’m wondering if the cocktail hour is enough time for me to take some pictures with family/friends and then change/get ready for the reception.  This is assuming I take most of the pictures before the ceremony.

First let’s assume your reception and ceremony locations are located in the same vicinity…which certainly makes it easier.  Are you using the same space for both the ceremony and the reception as well?  Will part of your room need to be transformed from the ceremony to the reception?  In which case you may want to chat with your venue and your decor team about the time they will need to flip the room. If you are getting married in one location and the reception is in another, take into consideration the travel time for guest as well as you and the wedding party. This is where having a wedding planner on your day can come in handy, they become your right hand to keep the timeline communication flowing the make sure all your vendors are on the same page and the food stays hot!

Second, if your day is starting very early (4-5am for hair and makeup, 6 for sari draping, and 7 pictures before the baraat) your day will be VERY long (2-4am end of dance?).  You may feel a bit inconsiderate having a long time laps in between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of your cocktail hour for your guest, but honestly that time will fly by for you in the blink of an eye. Both you and your fiancé will need the time to recover from the late night before, early morning, lengthy ceremony and oodles of pictures. Having the 3-4 hour span will allow you to nap and recover for an hour before starting your prep for the evening.  It will also give you the chance to snap a few pictures with your new hubby alone before greeting guests.

Third, how extensive are you planning the pictures to be after the ceremony? A lot of times these pictures can get out of hand, since everyone wants a picture of the new happy couple in their wedding attire and they begin to flock by the thousands  .  So your hour could easily be cut down to 30 minutes if you don’t plan pictures carefully. Helpful hint: If you’re planning extensive family pictures at the mandap, create a chart of all the members who should be in each picture and create a timeline for those pics. Get the massive group photos out of the way first and then peel off the member who no longer need to be there until you’re down to the end of the list. Also appoint a member or two on each side of the family to handle the list and set up the pictures. As his side of the family is arranged for their photo, your side can be gathering the group for the next photo, that way it moves smoothly and quickly!

Fourth, what time is your ceremony ending? If your vadaii ends before 2 you won’t want to start your cocktail hour before 6, otherwise you have a very early dinner.  If your dinner is early, you will end up with very hungry guest as the night progresses into the wee hours, which is ok if you have a spectacular late night snack planned, but will have guest crashing early if their energy levels begin to dip. On the flip side, I wouldn’t advise starting cocktail hour much after 6 or you push dinner into 8 or 9 by the time all the guest and you get situated.

Fifth, do you plan to attend any of your cocktail hour? There is no hard and fast rule about the bride and groom attending or not attending the cocktail hour. Some couples want to use it as a time to greet some of their guests, while other still prefer to have their presentation as Mr. & Mrs. as a grand entrance into their reception. You could in fact do a grand entrance into your cocktail hour, if you really want to attend and want the “first.” You can also save the grand entrance for the reception, even if you attended the cocktail hour. If attending the cocktail hour is not important, you can factor the cocktail hour time into your allotted reception attire “picture time”.

The best piece of advice I can give you for the day is give yourself time.  The last thing you want to do is be rushed, because we don’t think clearly when we are and often begin to snap at guests and love one’s unintentionally.

How much time is too much or too little is really up to you, but keep your own sanity in mind when you are cramming everything in. Sometimes your day can be dictated by the people around you, ie you wedding venue or décor team who need the time to change things over, but sometimes you need to take a bit of control to make sure you remain a blushing bride…and not the bridezilla next door.