How are you timing your morning?

Im getting married at 1.30.... and so far my morning is sort of looking like this.

7am - Wake up (though sure I will already be awake!!)

7am - 8am - Shower and give bridesmaids their gifts

8am - Hairdresser arrives

8.30am - 11.30am - Me and four bridesmaids have our hair done and do our own make up in between, will also have some breakfast at some point

11.30 - Get ready to leave my house

12.00 - Arrive at my wedding venue with bridesmaids and hairdresser, get into my dress and bridesmaid dress too

12.45 - A few photos

13.00 - Meet with registrar

13.15 - Get myself ready to walk down the isle!!

If you are having a civil ceremony you need to meet with the registrar before you get married, so allow 10 minutes for that before the service.

Also, if your dress is a lace up back, ideally you need to give yourself 20-30 minutes to get into the dress and be laced up etc....

Ahh this was one of my biggest worries! We worked out a really careful plan and for the most part it actually worked! Even so it was quite a rush at the end. I got married at 2.30pm and our morning went roughly like this:

6.30am - I woke up (ugh!) - didn't set an alarm for this time, just couldn't get back to sleep! Bridesmaids got up as well (they all stayed with me) and went through the shower.

7am - sort of staggered breakfast with bridesmaids going through shower still

7.30am - hairdresser arrived & started doing bridesmaids hair - it took about an hour each person! (I was doing very little at this point, just watching and grinning madly!)

9am - I showered (didn't wash hair as did this the night before so saved some time here) and did my make-up

10.15am - my hair got done, 1 bridesmaid still had her hair in curlers at this point

11.30am - my mini bridesmaids were brought over by their dads (not yet dressed) and we had an early lunch buffet-style for people to just grab/pick from. I couldn't eat much!

midday - flowers arrived

12.15pm - photographer arrived and did some "getting ready" pics, then I got into my dress and had a few more pics in the garden, meanwhile my mum turned up for a bit to see my dress etc, and the bridesmaids all got dressed

After that it was all a bit of a blur! Lots going on, bridesmaids doing their make-up and make-up for the little ones, my dad arrived around 1pm, and frankly it all got a bit mad up until the bridesmaids left around 1.45pm. I then stood there like a bit of a lemon until we left at around 2.15pm for the church!

So I guess no matter how carefully you plan it things will go awry. My advice would be to work out how much time you need for hair and make-up and who needs to be done when (e.g. I wanted to be done towards the end so that my curls would hold for as long as possible!), then try to plan everything else around that. Other tips would be:

- If your dress is a lace up back, leave at least 30 mins to get into it to allow for any mistakes and to tighten up once the dress settles

- Go to the loo before getting into your dress!

- Don't drink too much too early on if it makes you dozy - it's a long day

- Make sure there is always someone around to be looking after you. In my case when the bridesmaids were busy getting ready, the hairdresser was an absolute star - she just did everything that needed doing and just generally went incredibly 'above and beyond'.

- Do leave more time than you think you will need - this will help you to relax a bit!

- Do try and keep the number of people around to a minimum for as long as possible! I am so glad it was just me, the hairdresser and the adult BMs until around 11.30am as this made everything much more relaxing. After that it went mental!

Hope that helps - enjoy your day ?

My vague plan is:

5am - wake up and struggle to get back to sleep due to over-excitement/nerves

7am - give up and get out of bed, wake bridesmaids

7:30am - breakfast (buffet style so lots of snacking can go on throughout the morning)

8:30am - bath my daughter and start the shower rota

10am - have a little cry

10:10am - get a grip and stick some wedding movies on

10:30am - start curling my daughter's hair and helping BMs out with their hair and make-up

Midday - make-up lady arrives

1:30pm - start getting me into my dress

2:30pm - Leave for the ceremony; BMs and daughter in MIL2b's car, me and MoH in my dad's car

Hello im interested in this too!

So far we have me, 2 adult bm's, my mum, my dad, my brother, my brothers gf, my sis and her partner all at my mums and all have to shower etc!

Quite stressed at this thought!

How am I timing my morning? In accordance with every other part of my life that has required timing.. "I'm late, I'm late, I'm late"

My Mum and I have given this so much thought! Haha! This is what we have come up with so far!

7am - Get up and have a long bath with my "Wedding Day" candle from Yankee Candle

8am - Give the Bridesmaids their gift bags which include "Bridesmaid" tshirts that match my "Bride to be" tshirt which we will all wear together for photos and to the hair dressers

8.30am - Go to the hairdressers which is 1 mile from my house, we are going there because there are 6 of us, and 3 hair dressers and they are opening early for us and having champagne and stuff for us to make it special, my Mum and I have been going there for years!

10.30am - Make up in my local salon which is about 5 doors down from the hair dressers! (I am having nails/eyebrows ets done the day before)

11.30am - Home to get into my dress etc

12.00pm - Photos in our garden and outside in the front garden etc

12.15pm - bridesmaids car leaves

12.30pm - Our car leaves

CEREMONY IS AT 1PM AND CHURCH IS 15 mins away

7am - get up, shower, dress.

8am - have breakfast

9am - do hair and make-up and get into dress

10.15 - have photos taken

10.45 - go to the church

10.50ish - have photos taken outside church

11ish - get married.

It's good to have some kind of a plan, but don't be surprised if you don't end up following it!

You should speak to your photographer and hair/makeup lady. My sister was getting married at 12.00 and we'd planned on BMs and MOB leaving the house at 11.45 and bride and dad leaving at 11.50, so my sister had planned on getting in her dress by, say, 11.30. Turns out her photographer had other plans as he didn't have an assistant/2nd photographer. She had to be in her dress by 10.30, so he could take shots of her in the house, before going to see the boys at the church at 11ish.

Once we'd got that bit sorted, she asked the hair/makeup lady how long it would take to do each person and worked back from there.

Well, mine's all gone a bit wrong already - I had no idea how long my make-up woman would take, and there's not enough time for her to do everyone, so now it's just me.

our day will lok a bit like this:

7.30 - wake up in hotel room at venue, eat breakfast and have coffee

8.00 shower (and wash hair - mine is greasy...)

8.45 leave to walk to hairdresser with BM

9.15 - 10.45 hair appointment for me, BM's and Mum

11 - return to venue in cab, let in make-up woman

11.30-1300 have make-up done, BM's get dressed. buffet lunch floating around and flowers arrive at some point

1300 get into dress, tog arrives, little BM's arrive

13.45 go downstairs to church, some photos

1400 ceremony - cannot be late!!!

I keep thinking I have bucket loads of tijme, but actually, am thinking it's loking a bit tight!

I had no idea on timings so this has been soooo helpful - and has now got me toooooo excited!!!

Will definately follow the advice and have the little BM's and page boys to come over later to save it being too hectic and the buffet breakfast/lunch idea is brilliant!!

xxx

I had always assumed it would be: get up, shower, breakfast, brush teeth, put on make up, have panic attack, dress, go. Does it have to be 'planned'?

Mind you, we will have me, OH, 2 BMs, and best person in the house so we'll need a shower roster!