Wedding Timeline Without a First Look in Las Vegas

If you are not doing a first look, every photo with both of you in it has to happen after the ceremony. That means your portraits as a couple, and any family grouping that needs both sides of the family at once. So your ceremony has to start early enough that there is still light left when you get to those photos. My rule for Las Vegas is to start the ceremony about two hours before sunset, and two hours is the least you want rather than a comfortable number. I have been photographing weddings in Las Vegas since 2009, more than 300 of them myself, and when a couple tells me they do not want to see each other before the ceremony, their ceremony time is the first thing I ask about.

There is a second half to that rule. Book your cocktail hour for about 90 minutes instead of the standard 60, because that window is where all of those photos have to happen. Your ceremony time and your cocktail hour length are the two decisions that keep your photos in daylight.

You do not have to do a first look

Most couples who bring this up with me have already had somebody tell them they were making a mistake. Waiting until you walk down the aisle is a real choice, and you do not need to be talked out of it.

I do typically recommend a first look, and I wrote a separate article about why I personally love them. If you want to see that reasoning, it is here. If you already know that you do not want to have a first look, I would not click over there. It will not help you plan this day, and you have already made your decision. What you need now is a schedule.

The honest tradeoff of skipping the first look

There are two real costs here, and I would rather you hear them now than find them out on your wedding day.

The first is the number of photos you end up with of just the two of you. When there is not a first look, it does reduce that number. With a first look, your portraits happen twice, once in the calm of the morning and again after the ceremony. Without one, they happen once.

The second is that your cocktail hour becomes your photo block. Family photos, wedding party photos, and the photos of just the two of you all land in that window, because none of them could happen while the two of you were being kept apart. Your guests will be at cocktail hour. You will be off taking pictures for most of it.

Neither of these is a reason to change your mind. They are the reasons your ceremony time and your cocktail hour length matter as much as they do.

What time should the ceremony start?

Start the ceremony about two hours before sunset. Here is the arithmetic behind that number.

A ceremony runs about 30 minutes. Starting two hours before sunset means you come out of your ceremony with about 90 minutes of daylight in hand. What has to fit into that daylight is three blocks of about 30 minutes each: family photos, wedding party photos, and portraits of just the two of you. That is 90 minutes of photos. The same photographers who publish those numbers say to add another 15 to 20 minutes on top, because families always run late getting into position, so the realistic number is closer to 105 or 110 minutes.

So the plan comes up 15 to 20 minutes short, and two things cover the difference. The first is that the light does not end at sunset. You have another 25 to 30 minutes of usable light after the sun goes down. That light is flatter and dimmer than the light an hour earlier. You would not want your portraits in it, but it is there if the family list runs long. The second is the longer cocktail hour. At 90 minutes instead of 60, running 15 or 20 minutes over does not push your reception entrance back, because the photos still finish inside the window your guests are already occupied with.

That is why two hours is the minimum and not a comfortable amount, and why I will take two and a half hours any time a venue will give them to me. Start one hour before sunset instead and you are photographing your grandparents in the dark.

Las Vegas sunset times and ceremony start times by month

That start time is a very different hour on the clock in June than it is in December, so here is what it comes out to across the year. These times are for around the 21st of each month, so look up the exact sunset for your own date before you sign anything.

Month	Sunset in Las Vegas	Ceremony start time
January	4:55 p.m.	2:55 p.m.
February	5:28 p.m.	3:28 p.m.
March	6:52 p.m.	4:52 p.m.
April	7:20 p.m.	5:20 p.m.
May	7:45 p.m.	5:45 p.m.
June	8:02 p.m.	6:02 p.m.
July	7:54 p.m.	5:54 p.m.
August	7:23 p.m.	5:23 p.m.
September	6:37 p.m.	4:37 p.m.
October	5:57 p.m.	3:57 p.m.
November	4:29 p.m.	2:29 p.m.
December	4:30 p.m.	2:30 p.m.

The two ends of the year are further apart than most couples expect. Our earliest sunset is about 4:27 p.m. in early December, and our latest is about 8 p.m. in late June, according to sunrise and sunset data for Las Vegas. The same wedding, planned the same way, starts at 2:30 in the afternoon in December and at 6 in the evening in June. If you have not locked your date yet, that is worth knowing, and I have more on the best time of year to get married in Las Vegas.

There is one thing to know if you are getting married in the summer. A ceremony two hours before an August sunset starts around 5:20 in the afternoon, and Las Vegas has not cooled off by then. August highs here average about 103 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, and early evening usually holds in the mid to upper 90s. I have more on planning a summer wedding here.

What if you cannot start two hours before sunset?

Plenty of venues sell a fixed ceremony slot, so this comes up often. You can still do this, and the fix is to move most of the photo list to before the ceremony anyway.

Skipping a first look only rules out the photos with both of you in them. Everything else can still happen in the morning, on separate sides of the building. Your own portraits, your family, and your side of the wedding party get photographed with you. Your partner’s portraits, their family, and their side get photographed with them. The two of you are never brought into the same room for any of it, and somebody on each side makes sure you do not walk into each other on the way. Zola’s sample timeline for a wedding without a first look builds in exactly this block before the ceremony.

That leaves two things for after you are married: the portraits of the two of you, and any family grouping that needs both sides together. Instead of 90 minutes of photos after the ceremony, you are looking at 30 or 40. A 5 p.m. October ceremony with a 5:57 sunset works fine on that plan.

If the light runs out anyway, I bring my own, and I would rather you know how that looks before the wedding than see it for the first time in your gallery. Flash pointed straight at you from the camera makes harsh shadows and a flatter, more frontal look. Bouncing it off a ceiling softens it. Moving it off the camera gives the light some direction. And a venue with string lights or candles already has something warm in the room to work with. Those photos can be lovely. They just look like an evening indoors instead of like late daylight, and that is the real tradeoff. I already know most of the venues in this valley, and for the ones I have not shot before, I visit ahead of time, so I am not working out the light for the first time on your wedding day.

What the day actually looks like

Here is the day in blocks, given as lengths rather than clock times, because your ceremony hour changes with the month. Find your ceremony time in the table above, then count backward and forward from it.

1. Hair and makeup start, about 7 hours before the ceremony. Your own hair and makeup takes 2 to 3 hours, and you want to be finished 4 to 5 hours before you walk. Each bridesmaid takes 1 to 2 hours, and mothers and grandmothers take about an hour, so a party of five or six people with a couple of stylists working at once runs 4 to 6 hours all together. For a 2:30 p.m. December ceremony, that means starting around 7:30 in the morning.
2. Photos start about 4 hours before the ceremony, 75 minutes long. Thirty minutes of detail photos, meaning the dress, the rings, the invitations and the room, while hair and makeup finish up. Then 45 minutes of getting ready photos and portraits with your people before you put your dress on.
3. Dressed and ready, about 2.5 hours before the ceremony. That leaves room for travel to the ceremony site, touch ups, and somebody keeping the two of you apart while guests arrive.
4. The ceremony, about 30 minutes. A religious service runs longer than that, so ask your officiant and move everything below it later by the difference.
5. Cocktail hour begins, 90 minutes. Your guests go get a drink the moment the ceremony ends. The next three blocks all happen inside this window.
6. Family photos, about 30 minutes. These go first, right where the ceremony happened, before anybody wanders off.
7. Wedding party photos, about 30 minutes.
8. The two of you, at least 30 minutes. This lands in the last 30 minutes before sunset, and that is on purpose. The hour or so before the sun goes down is the softest light of the whole day, and putting your portraits last is what puts them in it.
9. Reception entrance, at the end of cocktail hour.

Nothing in that list is fixed except the ceremony. Move the ceremony and everything moves with it.

Does an early ceremony change your reception?

No, it moves your reception earlier and leaves it alone otherwise. A 2:30 p.m. December ceremony puts your entrance around 4:30 in the afternoon. That sounds early, and in practice it works out fine. The usual sequence runs entrance, then first dance, then dinner, and starting early does not reorder any of it. An early ceremony does mean your night ends earlier too. Check the end time on your venue contract and make sure it still matches the party you had in mind.

Do you miss your own cocktail hour?

Yes, most of it, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. All three photo blocks happen inside that window. The Knot’s timeline also has skipping the first look pushing the reception entrance 15 to 20 minutes later than it would have been.

The extra 30 minutes does not automatically give you time with your guests. It gives the photo list room to run long without delaying your reception. Whether you get any of that hour back depends on your family photo list, and you write that list months earlier. A short list can finish the whole block in an hour and give you the last half hour with your people. A long one uses every minute there is.

Two other things help. Send each group off to cocktail hour as soon as their photos are done, rather than holding everyone until the end. And if there is something in that hour you actually care about, a toast with your grandparents or twenty minutes with friends who flew in, tell me before the wedding day, and I will make sure it is on your family list or your timeline when we lock it in on the planning call.

How the family and wedding party photos get done fast

I have gotten very efficient at family and wedding party photos, and I still want them to be photos you would put on a wall. The speed comes from the list and the logistics. Four things make the difference.

• A written list, kept short. Figure on about two minutes per family grouping, so eight to ten combinations comfortably fits inside that half hour, with time left over for the group that always runs late. Write them out before the wedding, and put the biggest groups first so grandparents and small children can go sit down.
• Everybody told where to be, in advance. Most of the lost time goes to waiting on one person who walked off. Tell every person on the list, before the wedding day, to stay in their seats when the ceremony ends. The photos happen right there.
• Anything that does not need both of you, moved to the morning. Family formals can happen before or after the ceremony, so every grouping that involves only one of you belongs earlier in the day.
• Your own portraits given a start time. The block for just the two of you goes on the schedule with a time next to it. If nobody puts it there, it becomes whatever minutes are left over when the list runs out.

Do you need to book an extra hour without a first look?

Usually not, and it depends on the rest of your day much more than it depends on the first look. Plenty of photographers do suggest adding an hour when there is no first look, since every portrait moves to after the ceremony. In my experience, what changes is when my hours fall inside your day, not how many hours you need.

Eight hours is the most popular choice for a traditional wedding, and it is where I would start with most couples. I show examples at six hours, eight hours, and ten or twelve hours, and then you and I work out your real number together at the consultation and again on the planning call. Three things move that number: a long getting ready morning, a big family list, or wanting me there through the last dance. Send me your ceremony time and your reception end time and I will tell you what I would book.

Why couples choose to wait until the aisle

That is the schedule. The part I like talking about is why couples choose to wait in the first place. About 44 percent of couples who married in 2023 saw each other for the first time at the ceremony, going by The Knot’s research, so plenty of people are planning the same day you are.

The reaction happens in front of everyone

Across the weddings I have shot, the couples who wait tend to want the same thing, and it has nothing to do with photography. They want to see their partner’s face when the doors open, and they want everybody in the room to see it too. Some of them are the more extroverted couples. From the pattern I have seen, a lot of them are simply the ones who really love their inner circle and would rather share something big with all of those people than only with each other. I think there is so much beauty in that, and if it is what you want, I think you should have it.

I photograph that from the front of the aisle. You end up with your partner’s face, and behind them, the people watching you walk.

The butterflies get to build all day

Something couples tell me, especially the ones who have been together a long time, is that butterflies are harder to come by than they used to be. They would rather feel them at the ceremony than at nine in the morning. A wedding day brings some on its own, and waiting all the way until the ceremony lets them build all day instead of settling down hours before you walk. In my experience that makes for a more emotional ceremony, and you can see it in the photos from the first thirty seconds after the doors open.

If you are trying to work out which of the two choices fits you, that is the question to ask. Couples doing a first look want those butterflies calmed down before they walk. Couples waiting want them at their highest. Both are good answers.

You get the whole morning with your people

This is my favorite part of a day without a first look. Your guest list is your whole inner circle. The morning belongs to a much smaller version of it: your bridesmaids, your groomsmen, your parents, and whoever else is actually in the room with you while you get ready.

Those same people stay with you the rest of the day. They are with you while you get ready. They stay with you right up to the ceremony. Then they stand beside you while you get married and kind of hand you off to your spouse. I think that is really pretty.

Be true to who you are

I really just want a couple to be true to who they are. If you do not want to have a first look, I totally support that. Planning the day is more than just planning the photos. The two hour rule and the longer cocktail hour are there to protect your ceremony, your time with your people, and a few minutes of being married before the party starts. Whatever timeline you end up with, I am dedicated to getting you beautiful photos.

If you are planning a Las Vegas wedding and you want help picking a ceremony time around your sunset, email me at mckenzie@msweddingimage.com or reach out through my contact page. Send me your date and your venue, and I will tell you what time I would start.