Not sure how much reception coverage you’ll need from your wedding photographer? Here’s everything you need to know about reception coverage (plus some tips and tricks you might not have guessed!).

First, decide on what you want to include in your reception.

Sit down with your partner and talk about what you want to include in your reception. What’s important to you? How do you want to feel right after you’re married, surrounded by your closest family and friends? Here are a few ideas to inspire you.

Do you want to do a big entrance at the beginning of your reception? Fresh off of newlywed portraits and some alone time, you could make a musical or attention-grabbing entrance to let you guests know that the party has arrived. You could even do this with your bridal party. You could go directly into first dances, toasts, and dinner.

Alternatively, you could walk in the room quietly and say hi to your guests. You could mingle, hug, and eat the remaining food from cocktail hour or grab a drink. You could then casually grab your food and start digging in. If you wanted to do speeches or special dances, you could do them after you eat.

Throughout the rest of the night, you can do more special dances, do champagne toasts, speeches by your parents or maid of honor/best man, or cut the cake. You could have a DJ pumping music to fuel a dance floor, or you could have a campfire where you can roast smores. It’s entirely up to you if you want a fun and energetic party or a chill celebration, or have a combination of both and go wherever you want.

If sunset is later in the evening, I highly suggest you take your photographer out for 15 minutes of sunset portraits. These will be some of the most magical portraits you can take, and you will have absolutely no regrets with them even years down the road.

If you want to have a fun exit with sparklers, fireworks, confetti, or flower petals, do it! You can have this be your actual exit and drive off into the night with your new spouse, or it can be fake and you can return to the party. More on this below.

So sit down with your fiancé and talk about how you want your reception to go! Before you talk to your photographer about coverage, you should know what you want covered and not.

Next, decide if you want to do an exit.

Exits can be a super fun and memorable way to end the night for you and your guests. Go big with sparklers or fireworks, or have guests throw biodegradable confetti or flower petals.

Here’s the secret: your exit can be real or fake.

In a real exit, you actually get into a getaway car and take off into the night. You say a big goodbye to everyone, then you’re out of there with your new spouse.

In a fake exit, you do the fun sparklers and run through a tunnel of light. After you take the photos, everyone goes back inside and you keep partying. You get to say goodbye to people as they leave, and you can leave whenever you feel like it.

If you don’t want to do any exit at all, that makes this next part even easier.

My biggest reception coverage tip

Plan your your FAKE exit for halfway through your reception. Plan for everything you want pictures of to go into the first half of your reception (first dances, toasts, etc.). After your fake exit, allow your photographer to go home. If you’re not doing an exit, let your photographer go home after halftime anyway.

Here are a few reasons why. Let’s say you have a 4 hour reception (dinner starts at 6, dancing ends at 10).

• If you have your photographer stay until your real exit at 10, half of your 8 hours of photography coverage will go towards your reception. You will miss out on valuable photos at the beginning half of your day, when you’re excited and getting ready for one of the best days of your life.
• Your photographer gets to go home early, which means you will have a happy photographer and a greater chance at getting a sneak peek of wedding photos!
• After your photographer leaves, there is a lot less pressure. No one is going towards or hiding from the camera (it’s usually about 50/50 for guests on whether they want their photos taken or not). They’re just focusing on you and having a good time.
• Here’s the biggest piece of wisdom from this photographer who has photographed dozens of receptions: the people who dance in the first 20 minutes will be the same people who are dancing 2 hours later. Maybe grandma will make an appearance for a few songs, or maybe that inconvincible friend will join the dance circle for 5 minutes, but in general it will be that same group of energetic people. Those who want to sit and chat will sit and chat for 99% of the night. As a photographer, I can capture all of this within 20 minutes. With a second photographer doing the same thing, we’ll get more than enough photos, and you’ll never know that they were only taken in 20 minutes. Trust me, you do not need your photographer to capture 3 hours of the same thing.

Instead, here’s the reception coverage I suggest

Let’s say your reception starts at 6. You want to do an entrance, first dances, toasts, dinner, cake cutting, sunset photos, and a fake exit.

Here’s a sample timeline for a big entrance with a sunset time of 8 PM:

6:00 Entrance right into first dance

6:05 Any other dances you wanted to do, such as mother-son or father-daughter

6:10 Toasts

6:20 Get dinner

6:50 Speeches

7:00 Cake cutting

7:10 Dancing/hanging out/get photos with guests

7:45 Sunset portraits

8:05 More dancing/having fun

8:30 or 9:00 Fake exit, photographer leaves

Here’s a sample timeline for a casual entrance with a sunset time of 8 PM:

6:00 Enter and mingle

6:20 Grab dinner

7:00 Speeches/toasts

7:15 First dances

7:25 Dancing/hanging out

7:45 Sunset photos

8:05 Cut cake

8:15 Return to dancing or hanging out

8:45 or 9:00 Fake exit, photographer leaves

With these timelines, your photographer can arrive for your day around 1, and they will have plenty of time in their coverage to get you hanging out with your family and best friends as you get ready. This is when you’re both excited and relaxed, eager for the rest of the day.

It’s in these moments that your photographers can help you prepare as well as capture all the little things you’ll want to remember for the rest of your life.

But of course it’s up to you! If you’re one of my couples or you’re interested in me photographing your wedding, I’m happy to help you create your perfect timeline.

For other timeline tips, check out this blog post about how to create the perfect wedding timeline!

To see what a whole wedding looks like as well as see other tips for couples planning their big days, check out my weddings category on my blog!

Pin this blog post here!

• 

•