Your wedding morning: a getting-ready timeline
The short version: allow about 30-45 minutes per face, do the bride last, and build in at least 30 minutes of buffer before your photographer arrives. For a bridal party of four to five, that means starting roughly four to four-and-a-half hours before you need to be camera-ready. As a mobile artist I come to your getting-ready location, so the timeline below assumes I’m set up in the room with you.
How long makeup takes per person
Timings shift with skin, the look and how many faces I’m doing, but this is the rule of thumb I plan around:
| Person | Time to allow |
|---|---|
| Bride | 45 minutes |
| Each bridesmaid | 30-40 minutes |
| Mother of the bride / groom | 30-40 minutes |
| Flower girl (light touch) | 10-15 minutes |
So a bride plus four others lands at roughly three hours of chair time. I keep bridesmaid and party makeup moving as a group so nobody’s look has time to settle or fade before photos.
A sample run-sheet
Here’s a worked example for a bride and three bridesmaids with a noon ceremony and the photographer arriving at 10:30 am.
- 8:00 am — I arrive and set up; first bridesmaid starts
- 8:40 am — Second bridesmaid
- 9:20 am — Third bridesmaid
- 10:00 am — Bride (the unhurried, lovely part)
- 10:30 am — Bride finished; photographer arrives; everyone’s faces are fresh
- 11:00 am — Buffer absorbs any overrun; into dresses
Work backwards from your own photo time and the shape stays the same: party first, bride last, buffer at the end.
Why the bride goes last
Finishing close to dressing keeps your makeup at its absolute freshest for the ceremony and the first photos, when the camera is on you most. It also gives us a calm final 45 minutes once the room has settled, which is genuinely the nicest part of the morning. I’ll leave you with a small touch-up kit and a quick how-to for blot and lip across the day.
Building in buffer (the bit people skip)
Wedding mornings always run long. Breakfast lands late, a dress needs steaming, hair and makeup overlap, someone pours champagne. Thirty minutes of buffer before photos is the difference between a relaxed start and a rushed one. A few things that protect the timeline:
- Have clean, moisturised skin ready when I arrive so we’re not waiting on prep
- Sort breakfast and bathroom breaks before chair time, not during
- Keep the getting-ready room well-lit near a window if you can
- Confirm whether hair is happening alongside me, since I do makeup only and we’ll want to stagger the chairs
If you’re getting ready somewhere with travel involved — a winery stay in the Swan Valley or a morning in Fremantle — tell me the address early so the start time accounts for it. I’ll build the run-sheet with you once your numbers and ceremony time are locked.
