Built backwards from your photographer, not forwards from breakfast. Here is how we schedule a wedding party of six without anyone being pinned as the cars arrive.
Every stressful wedding morning we have worked has had the same cause: the schedule was built forwards. Someone decided hair starts at eight, then hoped it would land by two.
We build backwards. Photographs first, then the dress, then the last face, then the first. Everything else fits in the gaps that leaves.
A party of six needs roughly four and a half hours with two stylists, and the bride should never be last. Put her second to last - it gives her finished hair time to settle without leaving her sitting in curlers while the cars pull up.
Build in a twenty minute buffer you do not tell anyone about. Something always runs long: a veil that needs re-pinning, a flower girl who has opinions, a photographer who wants the getting-ready shots earlier than agreed.
And feed everybody. We have watched more bridal-morning tension come from an empty stomach at eleven in the morning than from anything a stylist did.
