Wedding Day Plans Always Hit a Snag – Plan for Delays

The wedding day is planned and tightly scheduled. What commonly throws off a well planned day is when an important player is late. The musician does not arrive on time, so the ceremony is delayed. The bride is late to the church because the makeup and morning preparations took longer than anticipated. Traffic is snarled on the major highway and guests are late. There are a lot of activities and tasks that take place on a wedding day and the chances of something being delayed is probable. The problem with delays is it throws the rest of the day’s schedule out of sync as the bridal party plays catch-up.

Professional suppliers are often good with timing as they understand the importance of the day. But sometimes, things happen that are out of their control. Weather conditions, getting lost... Sometimes, such things cannot be avoided. If the bride is late, then the bride is late. It is not like someone else can substitute in for the bride at the last minute. The same goes for the makeup artist, photographer, limo, decorators, and anything else one needs for the wedding. So what can you do?

Plan for it. Plan for delays, and plan enough buffer time in between each event and activity to accommodate for lateness. Wedding day schedules are already tight enough. There are a million things that need to be done in one day. But make an effort to buffer the times for lateness. This may mean cutting down the time for each activity. But if things do go on schedule, then think of that as a bonus, more time that can now be spent on the activity at hand. Or think of it as extra breathing room, that you can take your time to enjoy and savor the moment with no rush.

Buffering the time for each activity means that should something get delayed, say the wedding ceremony is scheduled for 1PM but is delayed to 1:30PM, the lateness of one activity will not encroach onto the next. This avoids a snowball effect where one delay affects another, and so on.

The dinner reception schedule can encounter delays as food courses are brought out later and later, or a speech runs overtime. Anticipate and plan for delays at the reception so that the post-dinner activities can still take place before the night runs late. At some reception venues, going overtime means extra cost for staff to stay longer. Hence, the importance of buffering the wedding day schedule to factor in lateness.

Bailey Parker Lee is editor of Toronto Bridal Kit, www.torontobridalkit.com