This started while I was putting together a practical guide to help couples plan their wedding day. I was trying to explain why the hours before the ceremony need more breathing room than people expect. Instead of another list of things to remember, I started telling the story of how those little delays pile up.
Somewhere along the way, it became a comic. The chaos is exaggerated, but the disappearing minutes—and the lengths we go to make everything work anyway—are very familiar. Hopefully it gives you a laugh and a little perspective on a part of the day that deserves more room.
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We start with prep. Everybody is excited. There is music playing, coffee somewhere, champagne somewhere else, and plenty of time.
According to the timeline.
I've seen this kind of morning before. Four hours until the ceremony looks like an enormous amount of time. You could drive to another town. Watch a movie. Cook something that requires a recipe. Surely we can get a few people dressed and take their pictures.
Nobody wants their picture taken before hair and makeup is done. So we spend the first hour getting the dress, rings, stationery, shoes, venue, and all the little details somebody spent six months choosing. The shoes are cooperative. The rings stay where we put them. So far, this is going great.
The first hour slips by. Nobody notices. We still have three.
As the bridesmaids finish up, we start pulling them one by one for video interviews. The photographer catches candid moments in between. The guys are arriving, hanging out, watching football. We bounce between rooms, trying to capture candid moments while still wrangling people for interviews. Everybody is happy to do one. Just not right this second.
“Give me five minutes.”
Five minutes is the official unit of measurement for wedding prep. It can mean anything from five minutes to sometime after the honeymoon.
We start getting the groomsmen's interviews between plays. The bride has just started hair.
The guys have a round of shots.
We're getting shots, too. Ours take a little more organizing.
One of the bridesmaids finishes makeup. Great. We can get her interview.
She checks the mirror. Turns her head. Checks the other side. Something isn't right. Back to the chair.
No problem. We'll get somebody else. By the time we find somebody else, she's looking for her lipstick. We wait. The guys have another shot. The bride's hair is about halfway done.
The bridesmaid finishes her touch-up. Now she's ready.
Except she needs a drink before she can talk on camera. A little liquid courage. We head over to the ballroom while her courage develops.
Decor is still going up. We find a few angles that don't include ladders, cardboard boxes, or somebody carrying half a centerpiece. Then the parents arrive and need help getting things out of the car. We have hands. We help.
Back inside. She's still drinking. Apparently courage has to be sipped.
We grab another bridesmaid. Get that interview. Come back. Our stubborn bridesmaid has finally reached the required level of courage. Get her interview, too.
That little expedition took the better part of half an hour. The interview took three minutes.
The parents are running around in no hurry to get dressed. We still need to interview them.
The bride's hair is three-quarters done.
That sounds encouraging. It sounded encouraging twenty minutes ago, too.
Two hours until the ceremony. Half our prep time is gone. Nobody is dressed. The groom is watching football, the bride is still in hair, and the room has the relaxed atmosphere of a beach vacation.
We keep making laps.
We get the last bridesmaid's interview. Hair needs another fifteen minutes, so makeup jumps in and starts working at the same time. Hair is still curling while makeup starts applying the war paint. The bride is trying to turn her head to answer three different conversations.
The groom is enjoying the game and is in no hurry to step away to read his vows or give his interview. Right after this play.
The play ends. Somebody has to explain why it shouldn't have ended that way. Then there's a replay. Then another angle of the replay. I can appreciate another camera angle. I'd appreciate this one more if the groom were standing in front of mine.
Somebody decides this would be a perfect time for the gift exchange.
The bride has blotchy, beginning makeup and unfinished hair. The groom is still in a wife-beater. But the gifts are here, and apparently the gifts have a schedule of their own. We make it work.
Still need the groom's interview. Still need the bride's interview.
The coordinator comes in and interrupts the entire hair and makeup operation to steal the bride away to look at something in the ballroom. Hair stops. Makeup stops. The clock, unfortunately, keeps working.
When she gets back, the bridesmaids decide this is the time to share a photo album with her. Hair and makeup are doing their best, but all the turning, pointing, laughing, and wiggling make it a little like trying to paint a ceiling fan while it's running.
We try to capture the moment. The album has several more pages than I had hoped.
Everybody has a story about every picture. We get some nice reactions. We also lose another chunk of the afternoon. Nobody has asked what time it is.
Finally, the groom is ready. We head outside for some quiet. Catering has just arrived and is rolling everything it owns up a ramp. Inside, the guys are screaming at the football game. In the bridal suite, Taylor Swift is giving a private concert at full volume.
We walk around looking for a place where wedding vows won't come with a soundtrack of rolling carts and a disputed touchdown. Find one. Get the interview. Get the vows.
Good. The groom's interview is done.
I glance at the time. Then I glance again, because that can't be right.
The bride's hair is finished. Her makeup still has a long way to go.
Mom doesn't want to be interviewed yet. She hasn't even made it into the hair chair. Dad went home to get something he forgot. The decor is further along, but catering is setting the tables now, so every beautiful angle comes with somebody's backside in it.
The guys have another shot.
“All right, let's get dressed.”
Excellent. They put it off another fifteen minutes. Getting dressed has been discussed, which apparently counts as getting started. We head back to the girls.
The girls can't get dressed yet because we still need the pajama picture, and we can't do the pajama picture until the bride is finished. The bridesmaids' hair and makeup are done. They're waiting on the bride.
One checks her phone. Another shows her something on her phone. Now they're all looking at the same phone. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with getting married.
We are making excellent progress at waiting.
Back to the ballroom. The DJ has arrived. His cases, cables, speakers, and bags are spread across the room. Somewhere underneath all that is a wedding reception we would love to photograph.
Quick bathroom break. Even the camera guy has a bladder, although the timeline doesn't mention it.
Come back. DJ still has a mess. Still no clean shots of the finished room.
Girls are sitting around looking at their phones. Guys are finally getting dressed. We open their door. Man, it stinks in there. Get the shot. Try not to breathe too deeply.
The bride's makeup is finally finished, but now she's hungry.
Somebody brings nuggets. We go back to the guys.
Still putting on socks.
I have been in three rooms, checked on the decor, and checked on an entire bride since the first sock went on.
Back through the ballroom. DJ's mess is still everywhere. The cake has arrived, but the flowers haven't, so the cake isn't finished either. We get what we can and keep moving.
The bride finishes her nuggets. Now she needs the bathroom.
Mom is in hair. The girls start a dance party.
Still haven't interviewed the bride.
Dad is back, but he doesn't want to do an interview. He has things to do. Apparently all of those things require walking away from me.
Mom moves to makeup. The dance party winds down. Flowers arrive, which draws everybody's attention. The bride needs to brush her teeth.
Still haven't interviewed the bride. But her teeth will be clean, the nuggets are gone, and everybody has seen the flowers.
I check the time.
Forty-five minutes until the ceremony.
Four hours have somehow become forty-five minutes. We have enough pictures of the shoes to sell the shoes. We still don't have an interview with the woman wearing them.
The pajama picture hasn't happened. The bride isn't dressed. Neither parent has been interviewed. The guys need their group shots. We need the girls' group shots. Microphones. Ceremony cameras.
Everybody else is still having a lovely afternoon.
I'm starting to walk faster.
Mom is finally ready. I go to get her interview. Right now. While she's here.
“Did you get her dad yet?” Mom asks. She wants me to get him first.
Working on it.
Dad sees me coming. Changes direction. I change direction. We are now doing laps of the same building for entirely different reasons.
Finally corner Dad. Start his interview. Now the bride is available for the pajama picture. Of course she is. The girls have been waiting all this time, but the moment I get Dad to stand still is the moment everybody else needs me.
Finish with Dad. Get Mom's interview before she disappears, too. Then hurry back to the girls.
Everybody's hair and makeup are ready for pictures, but apparently getting themselves into one place wasn't part of the plan. Time to herd the cats. One is in the bathroom. One is looking for her phone. One needs somewhere to put her drink. Get them together. Get them arranged. Get them smiling.
Almost everybody.
The stubborn bridesmaid is still messing with her hair while the rest of the group is smiling nicely. Everybody holds. She fixes one more piece. Everybody holds some more. Somewhere behind my own smile, I'm doing math I don't like.
That one piece of hair is using up time I had mentally assigned to the groom's microphone.
Get the picture. Get another. Change it up. A few quick moments. Beautiful. Done.
The girls go back inside.
Mimosa time.
Still haven't interviewed the bride.
The coordinator comes in. “Twenty minutes until the ceremony.”
The bride isn't dressed.
Now everybody can hear the clock.
Three hours of “in a minute” have come due all at once.
Mom and the bride rush through getting the dress on and all the tape applied. Zippers, buttons, somebody underneath the skirt. We're trying to capture emotion, but all that's there is chaos. Mom is looking for scissors. Somebody is asking where the shoes went. Everybody has suddenly discovered we are having a wedding today.
Still need the bride's interview. Need to mic the groom. Need group shots of the guys. Need ceremony cameras set up.
The coordinator still hasn't put the boutonnieres on the guys.
Find the coordinator. Find the flowers. Back to the bride.
She's in the makeup chair again. Touch-up.
Back to the guys. Get them together. Get the pictures. Check the groom's microphone. Back to the bride.
She's ready.
Get her mic on. Do the fastest interview I can. Ask the questions. Get the answers. Gotta rush. Gotta get the girls' group shots. I still need to set up the ceremony cameras.
Finish the interview. Herd the girls back together. Knock out the group pictures. Keep moving.
Guests are arriving. Guests are sitting down.
I still have two cameras to set up.
Where's the officiant? I need to mic the officiant.
Find him. Mic him. Check audio. Back to the cameras.
The wedding party is lined up.
One camera left.
Oh no. I need new batteries.
Of course I need new batteries.
The officiant is walking down the aisle. I slip past him with batteries in my hand, get one into the camera, check the frame, and hit record just as he reaches the front.
Breathe … breathe … breathe …
Check exposure. Check focus. Find the other shooters. A small signal. I've got my shot.
Here comes the groom. Steady hands. Slow movement. Follow him down the aisle.
Breathe … breathe …
My heart rate starts coming down. The cameras are in place. The audio is running. The bridesmaids make their way down the aisle, and the room settles into that familiar, wonderful anticipation.
There's the flower girl. Look how cute she is in that dress.
For a moment, I get to see it, too.
Breathe … here comes the bride.
